How to Do a Deadlift, Arguably the Single Best Exercise of All Time

Fact: If you want to feel like a total pro walking into the gym, learn how to deadlift. If you feel strong and secure in your movement, you'll get a bit of a confidence boost doing this compound exercise (one that uses multiple muscles).

• ‌What is a deadlift?‌ It's a lower-body exercise that involves hinging your torso forward, pushing your butt back and pulling weight up from the ground up.
• ‌What muscles do deadlifts work?‌ They strengthen your entire body, with an emphasis on your glutes, hamstrings, core, lats and forearms.
• ‌Who can do the deadlift?‌ Almost everyone at any fitness level, including beginners, can do this move in some form. If you have an existing or past back injury, consult your doctor or physical therapist before adding this move to your routine.

Before you start repping out your deadlifts, it's crucial to practice your form. Many classes and instructors will have you practice with a PVC pipe or your body weight to learn the movement pattern before adding weight.

The crux of the deadlift is the hip hinge. It's a foundational movement pattern — and critical to learning first if your goal is to deadlift heavy weight.

"It's important to nail this movement with body weight first to avoid any lower back or knee injuries when it comes time to load the exercise with weight," Dan Partridge, CPT, personal trainer at Life Time in Minnetonka, Minnesota, tells LIVESTRONG.com.

"When performing a hip hinge, keep your shoulder line above your hip line and your hip line above your knee line," Partridge says. "If your shoulders lower further down than your hips, your lower back will be overloaded and if your hips travel lower than the line of your knees, you are technically squatting and no longer in a correct hinge."

Practicing the hip hinge also differentiates the deadlift from the squat (more on that below).

"Both exercises are compound and functional movements, and both have amazing benefits," Torde says. The main differences include:

‌The deadlift is a hip-dominant movement, and the squat is a knee-dominant movement.‌ Both work the lower-body muscles, but the squat focuses more on the quads (front of the legs), whereas the deadlift targets the hamstrings (back of the legs).

"Traditionally, a deadlift will start with the weight on the floor and ends with it back on the floor," Patridge says. On the other hand, when you're doing a squat, your own body weight is the load.

And if you're using external load (dumbbell, kettlebell or barbell), it can be in your hands by the floor (suitcase squat), at your chest (goblet squat) or racked across your shoulders (front squat) or back (back squat), Torde says.

When doing a squat, you want to keep your spine straight and as vertical as possible, Partridge says. This ensures your hips can stay open and your hip flexors aren't overloaded. By comparison, deadlifting requires a straight spine but not an upright one.

"When performing the hip hinge that is required when deadlifting, the person's torso will start to angle toward the floor," Partridge says. "The spine is still straight, but it cannot stay upright in order to perform a deadlift correctly."

"Squats require a certain amount of ankle mobility to be able to perform one correctly," Partridge says. The ankles need to flex when you bend your knees and squat down. But when deadlifting, your shins stay vertical, meaning there's little to no flexion in the front of the ankle, he says.

"If your shins are flexed and not vertical in the deadlift, your toes and balls of the feet will have too much weight loaded into them which can cause strain on your lower back."

If you're new to deadlifts, focus on learning the hip hinge until you feel comfortable with the movement, Tatiana Lampa, certified personal trainer, tells LIVESTRONG.com.

Once you can do it weight-free with good form, progress to a kettlebell, Lampa says. You may feel inclined to jump right to the barbell, but the kettlebell is the safest next step, as the weight can be easier to control but still mimics the bar pretty closely.

Knowing when to progress is personal, but Lampa instructs her clients to go by their rate of perceived exertion (RPE). In other words, judge your effort on a scale of one to 10, one being extremely easy and 10 being extremely difficult.

"If you feel like you're somewhere between one and six, I'd highly suggest going heavier," Lampa says.

Like squats or push-ups, deadlifts are a compound exercise, which means they work multiple joints and muscles at the same time. Unlike isolation movements, which target one muscle at a time, compound exercises will help you burn more calories and improve muscle coordination and exercise efficiency.

Deadlifts are a great way to strengthen your posterior chain (back of the body), Lampa says. They target your hamstrings, glutes, back, hips and abdominals.

By targeting the posterior chain, deadlifts can help address some of the negative effects of sitting for long periods of time or staring down at your phone. Over time, these sedentary activities can lead to poor posture, muscle imbalances and even injury or pain.

"Today, we are spending much of our day working from home, which means we're sitting down, rounding our shoulders and decreasing our steps," Lampa says. "It's really important to focus on the posterior chain to build your strength and decrease the risk of injuries."

"Deadlifts are a part of our daily activity but some people don't recognize them," Lampa says. "When you're placing your baby in the crib or picking something up from the ground, you're performing a deadlift."

Training this movement in the gym will allow you to do these everyday tasks better — that's what we mean when we say it's "functional" — without hurting yourself.

Deadlifts also improve your grip strength. A strong grip is associated with tons of positive health outcomes, including increased bone density, better sleep and improved brain health. A weak grip is associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular mortality, stroke and heart attack.

That's because you've likely been hitting weights and reaping all the health benefits of strength training. Lifting weights leads to better grip strength, and better grip strength means you can lift bigger and heavier things. As you deadlift, you're building this important grip strength that will let you progress in the gym and also make it easier to hold, carry or grab onto things IRL.

Yes, a deadlift is a lower-body movement, but it's also a core workout. Engaging your core throughout the entire movement is what keeps your spine stable — so that you can avoid overarching it and straining as you lift.

"Maintaining tension throughout the entire movement is key," Torde says. Before lifting, take a big breath in and brace your core. At the top of the movement, exhale, then inhale and brace again before lowering the weight back down.

Partridge recommends over-gripping the bar — meaning you should be squeezing as hard as you can.

"Working with a stronger/harder grip gives you a much stronger connection and feedback from the bar, since [the hands] are your first and only constant points on contact with the weight during the deadlift," Partridge says. "It translates to a more focused mindset as well."

He recommends using a 'white knuckle' grip. You can also think about crushing a soda can in your hand. "Think of how satisfying and how much you could squeeze your grip if you could keep continuously crushing a can in your hand. If you think you have some grip strength left in the tank, keep squeezing harder."

It's normal for your shoulders to try and naturally raise up during a deadlift, Partridge says. But if you let it happen, it can result in rounding your upper back, which leaves your lats (the large muscle that runs along each side of your back) out of the movement.

When this happens, your body will use other muscle groups to compensate, which can put unwanted pressure on your lower back, Partridge says. It can also mess with your shoulders. You may not end up injured the first time you deadlift, but it can cause issues over time.

Instead, focus on "packing the shoulders," or pushing them down in their sockets, when you set up for the lift, Partridge says. This will keep the lats and shoulders engaged in a safe, powerful way.

Squats and deadlifts are similar, but they're not the same. Lampa often sees people mistakenly turn their deadlift into a squat, forgetting the hip hinge motion. With a deadlift, think about shooting your hips back and moving horizontally, rather than vertically.

As mentioned earlier, a deadlift shouldn't involve your knees coming forward and ankles flexing. If that's happening, you're doing more of a squat than a hip hinge.

If you find your ankles flexing, put down the weight and go back to the body-weight hip hinge. Focus on pushing your butt back as your torso comes forward. Your feet and shins should stay in the same position from start to finish. Try bending your knees a little more — tight hamstrings could also be interfering.

As you lift the weight up or lower it back down, keep your back flat and long. Often, though, Lampa spots exercisers rounding their back as if they were performing a stretch or roll down.

"I definitely don't want to see that in a deadlift," she says. "That's loading their low back and not activating their hamstring, glutes, lats and core."

To avoid rounding your back, brace your core and think about moving the top half of your body (head to hips) in one straight plane. And don't bend over too far. If you lean over too far, you're likely to see the shoulders and upper back start to round. Instead, once you feel a stretch in your hamstrings, squeeze your glutes and stand back up.

A big part of proper deadlift form involves keeping the weight close to your body as you lift and lower.

"It should feel like you are pulling up your pants," Torde says. If it's too far away, you won't have much power during the lift "since the weight is too far away from your center of mass. It also increases the chance of injuring your back, she says.

If you see the weight drifting away from your body, your lats (side and mid-back muscles) probably aren't engaged, Lampa says. To avoid this, think about pulling your shoulders back and down, locking your lats in place.