Meriah & Steph Collaboration Post: Deadlift Continuation

Meriah is in NYC for two weeks from Denmark so we met up this week to train together :) Last week when I posted about the 2 most elementary Deadlifts, she messaged me right away saying we should take this a step further and do a collaboration post with other deadlifts, because deadlifts are number one in her book! So we did just that :)

Like I mentioned in my first post, you can use a variation of weights to do your deadlifts, but the best in my opinion for the most basic deadlifts would be to use a barbell. In this case, we were working out at the gym in my building so we used a regular bar to demo.

To review the Romanian deadlift, slightly bend your knees and sit your hips back- keeping your back flat. Keep your hands positioned on the bar in alignment with your legs, shoulder width apart and go down to your shins and repeat.

  

The next that Meriah is doing is the Wide Grip Deadlift. This is an easy modification and pretty self explanatory. Grip the bar as wide as you can and do the same Romanian Deadlift motion as the first exercise. This grip is for your upper back and it allows you to go deeper into the dead lift.

 

The third deadlift we featured is the Sumo Deadlift with High Pull. For this exercise Meriah used the kettlebell. Stand in a wide stance with your feet turned out at an angle. Have a close together grip with your arms inside of your knees. Pull the weight up so that your arms form a V underneath your chin and your elbows are pointed in the air.

 

The last exercise is the Single Leg Deadlift. This exercise is done with dumbbells. Start standing with the weights by your side. Lean forward, holding the weights in front of you and simultaneously lifting 1 leg backwards in the air. Start by doing 10 on the first leg and then switch to the other & do the same.

 

Let us know if you guys have any follow up questions! :) - Steph and Meriah

Deadlifts

The 30 day squat challenge that I posted is everywhere and social media has really taken off with showing the amazing results. An update/next step to that would be a dead lift challenge. There is a debate as to whether squats or dead lifts are better but honestly they both make for amazing results and I think they should be done in tandem. There is no way I would know what a dead lift was if it wasn't for having a trainer. Deadlifts are most known for targeting and lifting your glutes/butt/ass/cheeks but this exercise actually strengthens 6 other areas: hamstrings, upper back, lower back, shoulders, quads, and abs. There are two major types of dead lifts that I do- regular Deadlifts and Romanian Deadlifts. If you don't already do these you should try to incorporate them in every workout you do.

For Regular dead lifts or "stiff leg deadlifts" you can use a dumbbell or separate hand weights. When women are doing high reps with weights, they're limited with how much they can increase the weight but deadlifts are definitely an exercise where you can challenge yourself and really increase the weight. In these pictures I only used 20 lb weights for higher reps but when I use a dumbbell I lift a lot more.

 

Staring in a standing position hold the weights, lean forward and have the weights follow your legs down to your shins while keeping your legs as straight as possible. Then lift back up, squeezing your glutes and repeat for the appropriate amount of reps to the weight you are lifting

Looking at this picture, my knees should honestly be less bent but my legs were so tight when I did this and I should have stretched out more before working out 

For Romanian Deadlifts, start in the same starting position but as you start to bring the weight down to your shins, bend your knees. For this type of deadlift, you should be going closer to the floor and stick your butt out more. Once again continue this for as many reps relative to the weight you are lifting

 

Both exercises are really simple but the results are unreal. For me, having bad knees - deadlifts are less painful than squats but like I said before you should really be doing both instead of one over the other