How to do the Barbell Deadlift
Step by step
- Stand with the bar over your mid-foot, feet about hip-width apart.
- Push your hips back and bend to grip the bar just outside your shins.
- Drop your hips, lift your chest, and pull your shoulders down to set a flat back.
- Take the slack out of the bar, then push the floor away and stand it up.
- Lock out by standing tall with hips through, then hinge it back down under control.
The thing people get wrong
Keep the bar dragging close to your legs the whole way and keep your back flat - never round your lower back to finish a heavy pull.
Coaching cue
Push the floor away with your legs instead of yanking the bar up with your back.
Stay safe
Keep the bar close and never round into a max pull.
Make it easier or harder
- Easier: Do Romanian deadlifts from standing, lowering only to knee height.
- Harder: Add a controlled two-second lower.
Muscles worked
- Primary: Hamstrings, Glutes
- Secondary: Upper Back, Core, Forearms
What to do instead
Same job, different movement — useful if you don't have the equipment or it doesn't feel right today.
Daily Coach builds this into a real weekly plan. It picks the exercises for your equipment and experience, swaps around injuries you tell it about, and tracks what you actually lifted.