1Lower back rounds
What you see: The low back bends forward as the bar breaks from the floor.
The fix: "Chest out", back flat. Take the weight down until you can hold that shape from the first pull.
Form guides · Hinge
The deadlift: lift it with your hips, not your back.
Picking a weight up off the floor is the most useful strength you can own. Here is how to do it well.
What good looks like.
A deadlift is a hip hinge from the floor. Your hips and hamstrings do the work, your back holds its shape, and your arms are just hooks. Leaning forward from the hips is part of the movement here, so the thing to watch is not how far you lean but whether your back stays flat while you do.
- Bar over the middle of your foot, shins close to it.
- Hips back, hands just outside your legs, back flat from your head to your hips.
- "Chest out" and "pinch the blades" before the bar leaves the floor.
- Push the floor away: hips and chest rise together, bar sliding up your legs.
- Finish tall with your glutes squeezed, not leaning back.
- Chin in, neck long
- Back flat: "chest out"
- Hips and chest rise together
- Bar close to the legs
The faults a trainer sees most
What goes wrong, and the cue that fixes it.
The cues in quotes are the words Brad Glaser uses with his own clients.
2Hips shoot up first
What you see: The bum rises and the bar stays put, turning it into a stiff-legged pull.
The fix: Push the floor away with your legs and let your hips and chest move up as one.
3Bar drifts forward
What you see: The bar swings out in front of your knees.
The fix: Keep it sliding up your shins and thighs. Pull your shoulders back and down to keep it close.
4Leaning back at the top
What you see: At lockout the low back arches and the hips push forward past the bar.
The fix: Stand tall and stop. "Squeeze your glutes" and "tuck it": your hips finish the lift, not your low back.
5Head cranks up
What you see: Eyes on the ceiling, neck bent back.
The fix: "Chin in." Look at the floor a couple of metres ahead.
Make it easier, make it harder.
Easier
- Romanian deadlift with dumbbells, to learn the hinge.
- Kettlebell deadlift from a block.
- Trap-bar deadlift, which keeps the weight beside you.
Harder
- Pause just below the knee.
- Deficit deadlift, standing on a low platform.
- Heavier sets, only while your back stays flat on every rep.
Move within a range that feels comfortable, and stop any exercise that hurts. Have a health condition, or been inactive a while? Ask your doctor what is right for you first. VeraForma is coaching, not medicine. It does not diagnose, treat or cure anything, and it does not replace your doctor or physio.
Let your phone check it.
Prop your phone up and train. VeraForma's camera draws the line on your body and names what it sees, with the number it measured.
Free: your reps counted out loud, and the common standing faults shown right on screen, with the fix in your set report. Go Premium and it speaks the fix while you move: "Knees out." "Chest up."
Scan to open it on your phone.
Free: your movement screen, Phase 1 of your programme and all of nutrition.
More form guides
Built by Brad Glaser · NASM Master Trainer · NASM-CPT, CES, PES · 20+ years · has certified 100+ personal trainers.
He owns a personal-training studio in Southern California. The same method he uses standing next to a client, built into the app.
Train it right, free.
Scan to open it on your phone.
Free account, no card. Brad's questions. One squat on camera. Then your results.