The second in our Big Bang Exercises Series. The deadlift is hard, sweaty work but it just delivers results. You’ll get toned hamstrings, a rock hard behind and beautifully chiseled shoulders and triceps. Sound good to you?

Apart from making you look good, deadlifts also carry over to real life. Any time you need to pick something up, whether it’s a bag of shopping or your kids, you’re deadlifting, so it’s well worth being good at it.

Finally, especially for women in the gym, this will give you a whole heap of confidence. You’ll feel (and be) a bad ass! And I don’t know about you but I like that! 🙂

Deadlift key points

• Start with the bar as close to your shins as possible
• The shins stay as vertical as possible with your weight on your heels
• Push the hips back and allow your arms to hang naturally by your side
• Chest out, look forward, keep neck relaxed
• When you grip the bar, keep the elbows straight and shoulders behind the bar
• Think of pushing the ground away instead of lifting the bar
• Always keep the bar as close as possible, it will feel like you’re dragging the bar up your legs
• This is one lift where if it gets heavy you can drop the weight. However, if you’re lifting lighter weights control the descent by pushing the hips back and returning to the start position

Here’s a video of the deadlift with a cool funky jazz theme 🙂