Can you deadlift with dumbbells

Place one foot a foot-length in front of the other, toe on the floor, so your stance is staggered. Hinge at your hips to lower your body. Your torso should be almost parallel to the floor. Keeping your core tight, push through your front heel to stand up straight.

Keep the weights close to your shins as you pull up. Stand with your feet together, holding a dumbbell in each hand in front of your legs. This is the starting position. Shift your weight to your right leg, and while keeping a slight bend in your right knee, raise your left leg straight behind your body, hinging at the hips to bring your torso parallel to the floor, and lower the weight toward the floor. Keep your back flat. At the bottom of the movement, your torso and left leg should be almost parallel to the floor, with the weight a few inches off the ground.

If your hamstrings are tight, you may not be able to lift your leg as high. Keeping your core tight, push through your right heel to stand up straight and pull the weight back up to the starting position. Bring your left leg back down to meet your right, but try to keep the majority of weight in your right foot.

Because doing a deadlift involves a decent amount of coordination, there are several common mistakes. The best ways to avoid all of these is to practice first without any weight in front of a mirror to check your form, or to work with a trainer.

You round your back. Deadlifts should be performed with an engaged core and neutral spine a flat back. You arch your back. Another common mistake is the opposite of the one above. You bend your knees way too much. Keep your knees loose, but focus on the movement coming from your hip hinge and only lower the weight as far as your flexibility allows.

You hold the weight too far from your body. They can peak their performance if they have a strong lower spine. Your lower spine connects your upper body to your lower and gets engaged more than you realize. Stronger quads help them makes bursting movements and providing stability for a various range of motions.

Whereas, for bodybuilders, it helps them become better lifters. Heavyweights or regular bodybuilders, lift weights over their body constantly. Sometimes they use their spine for stability. The weaker back can put them out for painful longer periods.

Not the psychical pain, but the emotional one knowing they cannot step to their holy gym for some time. Back injury is one of the most common problems among people with a sedentary lifestyle.

Not enough regular movement makes the body stiff. Off you are on vacation, and the moment you try to lift the luggage off the conveyer belt, there goes your vacation to ruins. Stronger quads are crucial for anyone. If your quads are weak, then your back will compensate and hurt itself.

If one muscle is not strong enough, we compensate with other muscles, unconsciously. Think grabbing your suitcase off a luggage carousel or lifting all those Amazon Prime packages.

You can also do these genius chair exercises for an office Tabata workout. Conventional deadlifts demonstrated here with dumbbells by NYC-based trainer Rachel Mariotti strengthen your entire posterior chain, including your lower back, glutes, and hamstrings.

You'll also engage your core throughout the movement, so it can improve core strength and in a way more functional way than crunches do. Learning to do this essential move correctly will help you avoid lower-back injuries not just in the gym, but when you're doing things like moving furniture or picking up a baby.

If your back isn't feelin' it, try this weird trick to prevent back pain during deadlifts. It's crucial to maintain a neutral spine during this movement, which means you shouldn't be arching or curling your back at all. If you're new to deadlifting, start out with light weights until you feel comfortable with the movement. There's a reason Famatumi recommends keeping your hands close to your shins when deadlifting with the weight in front of you: if you lift heavy weights with improper form, you risk damaging your back and legs.

The further away the weights are from your legs, the more your lower back is working instead of your legs and glutes, and straining your back can be dangerous.

As such, it's essential to warm up with hamstring stretches and movements which limber up your back. Famatumi recommends lying down on your back, bringing one knee across the body and down towards the floor, as in the picture above. Hold it for seconds and repeat the movement on the other side, performing the stretch three times. While warming up before a gym session is very important anyway, it's especially important when learning how to do a deadlift with dumbbells or any other significant amount of weight due to the strain on your back.

But warming up also improves your stability and balance during the exercise according to Zurich's Federal Institute of Technology , so there's no reason not to spend a few minutes limbering up before you approach the dumbbells. This exercise, which can be performed with either dumbbell or a barbell, offers a good workout for the hamstrings, glutes and back like a normal deadlift, with the addition of the row working your biceps and upper back.

Speaking of your back, try to keep it carefully neutral throughout the exercise to help prevent injury. Matt originally discovered exercise through martial arts: he holds a black belt in Karate and remains a keen kickboxer and runner.