Starting Strength, 3rd Edition - Mark Rippetoe [67]
Step 3: Knees forward
With your grip secure, bend your knees and drop them forward just to the point where the shins touch the bar. Again, DO NOT MOVE THE BAR, since it is already where you want it over your foot. Hips do not drop down during this movement – only the knees and shins move. Once the shins are touching the bar, the hips freeze in position. They do not drop any farther. Now shove your knees out just a little to establish the slight angle of the thighs and knees that keeps them parallel to your feet. Knees will be in contact with elbows after this happens, and that is fine. The correct grip width will have the clearances very close during the pull, and if the grip is correct and the thighs are externally rotated a little, the knees will touch the elbows. Most people will try to lower their hips during this step. If you do this, you will push your knees forward, thus pushing the bar forward. Just touch the bar with the shins and shove your knees out just a little.
Step 4: Chest up
This will be the most difficult step for most people: squeeze your chest up into the deadlift start position. Lifting the chest is accomplished by using the muscles of the upper back, and this starts a process of spinal extension that finishes at the pelvis. While gripping the bar, being careful NOT TO MOVE IT, shove your rib cage up so that your chest rotates up between your arms. Let this contraction continue down your back until your lumbar spine is tightened into contraction as well. In this way, your back is properly positioned for you to pull without dropping your hips – the back will have positioned itself correctly so you can pull from the top down instead of by lowering the hips, which would shove the bar forward. DO NOT try to squeeze your shoulder blades together in the back; scapular adduction will pull you down closer to the bar into a position that you cannot maintain with a heavy weight because that’s not where your shoulder blades actually stay during a pull. When you are in the correct position, stare at a point 12–15 feet in front of you on the floor so that your neck can assume its normal anatomical position. You might need to think about keeping your chin down, too.
This step will be difficult because of hamstring tension fighting against the proper extension of the lower back. Remember: The back muscles and the hamstrings are in a war for control over your pelvic position, and the lower back must win. During this step, most people will try to drop their hips. If you do this, the bar will roll forward of the mid-foot. Your hips will probably be higher than you want them, especially if you have been deadlifting using another method. Keep your hips up, and compensate for this weird feeling by squeezing the chest up even more. After you do a few deadlifts and your hamstrings get warm, the movement will feel better and more familiar.
Step 5: Pull
Take a big breath and drag the bar up your legs. This means exactly what it says: “drag” implies contact, and the bar never leaves contact with your legs on the way up to lockout. This step will be the first time that the bar actually moves at all, and if you do it correctly, the bar path will be a straight vertical line, starting at its position directly over the mid-foot and ending at the top at arms’ length with your chest up, knees and hips in extension, spine in the normal anatomical position, and feet flat on the floor. If at any time during the pull the bar leaves your legs – which often happens as the bar gets above the knees and near the thighs – it will be off balance, forward of your mid-foot.
If the bar loses contact with your shins as you start the pull, it has traveled forward. Leaving the bar out away from the legs may be due to the perfectly natural desire not to scrape the shins, but the bar must remain close to the legs to avoid getting it out of balance. Make up your mind that you’re going to keep it close, and wear sweats or thin shin guards to protect your shins if you have to. If the bar moves forward anyway