Man Bicep Form Bible – Deadlifting and Benching
So today during our workout, we took a couple of videos to show our form.
The first video is of one of our favorite exercises – deadlifts. This is during my warm up round.
1. I set my feet and my hands. My feet are a little wider than shoulder width apart and my hands are right outside my shins.
2. I sink low, putting my weight in my heels.
3. I put tension on the bar by pulling up as I raise my head and chest. (You always want your head and chest up instead of sagging toward the floor. This will keep your back from rounding. I sometimes even like to raise my chin right before I settle in to remind myself to keep my chest up. And you can also look at the ceiling to remind yourself not to round. Don’t pull your whole head up. Just pick a place with your eyes.)
4. I pull up on the bar by pushing through my heels, keeping my butt down. (Don’t let your butt come up too fast or you will put more strain on your back.)
5. As I pull up, I keep the bar close to my legs. (Usually my pants or shins are scrapped up from the bar after a deadlifting workout!)
6. At the top I lock out by squeezing my glutes and pressing my hips forward.
The other main lift we did today was bench. After a push up/pull up pyramid yesterday it wasn’t easy. Candy rocked it out though. Below is one of her sets.
1. Set your hands about shoulder width apart.
2. Tuck your elbows in slightly as you lower the bar. (Your upper arms actually shouldn’t be at a 90 degree angle to your torso because this puts more pressure on your shoulders.)
3. Lower the bar all the way to your chest/upper abs.
4. Press back up, locking out your elbows. Always push back toward the rack.
5. Throughout the movement try not to arch and keep your feet on the ground.
Now go out and lift!! Work on those Man Biceps! 🙂
Posted on September 9, 2011, in Man Bicep Form Bible, Workout and tagged Bench form, Deadlifting form, Lifting form, Women lifting. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
Man Bicep 
Looking up/forward while deadlifting is what’s intuitive, but you really don’t want to hyperextend your neck–it’s a less stable position for your spine. You’re better off looking at the ground ~8-10 feet in front of you so your neck stays “packed” and your spine stays neutral. Much stronger position. (This is something I’ve been corrected on recently.) Pulling your shoulder blades waaaay back and down is also very, very helpful in keeping your back from rounding. 🙂
I disagree very strongly. Keeping your head and chest up is NOT intuitive for most people. If you watch people at the gym or work with first time lifters, all of them round their back and don’t keep their chest up. Their face and eyes are looking at the ground. While you definitely don’t want to hyper-extend your neck (or anything else for that matter), you do want to have a light raise to your chin at the beginning and you do want to direct your eyes to the ceiling. Not your whole head just your eyes. I will add that to the post for clarification.
Also, you shouldn’t squeeze your shoulder blades like you do during a squat. If you think about keeping your chest up and really sitting back into your heels, your shoulder blades will be pulled back and down enough. For most people learning a new move, it is easier to have something to focus on like “keeping the chest up” than it is to think about pulling the shoulder blades back and down. They don’t necessarily have the “body recognition” to do that.
it’s quite intuitive if you teach yourself how to deadlift in front of a mirror 😉
haha being a smart and enthusiastic exerciser also helps!