It seems that this exercise goes against the wisdom of “lift with your legs.” Why is that?
In: Biology
“Lift with your legs, not your back” is an adage to bend your knees, lower your hips, and hold a straight back while lifting.
The issue that it seeks to avoid is to having a rounded spine, so that the tension of the lift is pulling the spine out of natural position, bending it. This stresses smaller muscles such as the spinal erectors as they become the primary component of movement, and exposes the spinal disks to alignment issues and injury.
Good lifting form instead holds the spine in a natural position and hinges to bring the shoulders in line. This allows much larger muscles such as the glutes and hamstrings to perform the lift, while relatively smaller muscles only have to keep the spine aligned.
This carries over to the deadlift.
The deadlift, performed correctly is a straight backed hinged movement.
The lifter bends their knees and lowers their hips to reach the bar, then braces to straighten the back and tenses to keep it there.
The first movement is to push with the legs to break contact with the ground and to allow the knees to move backwards and clear the bars path.
The second movement is to hinge the torso upwards by driving the hips forward. This is a big hamstring and glute movement. Because the hips are driven forward relative to the shoulders, the torso rotates upwards, and the lift is completed.
Now, how can lifters lift hundreds of pounds without messing up their back?
We’re stronger than you.
That’s all. Even with good technique, your muscles are not strong enough to maintain good technique under stress / strain, and could injur yourself.
Whereas we’ve trained and worked up our strength such that we can maintain good technique even when highly strained.
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