Athlete question: “As a cyclist, should I bother to deadlift?”

I love these questions. I get to justify my basic bias!

Every athlete should pick things up from the floor. My simple logic is that, if you don’t, you’ll never do anything at all. So since, as an athlete, you want to do things, you should probably be capable of picking things up from the floor.

Jokes aside, should an athlete train for bar-bending, nosebleed-inducing, record-breaking poundages in the competitive deadlift?

…maybe. If that athlete is a serious, competitive powerlifter.

For everyone else, there’s a lot of range between “I don’t lift” and “DL WR”. That’s the range I want to explore.

What good is the deadlift?

As a hinge, it trains one of the most powerful movement patterns humans are capable of. The deadlift trains the things you use to jump high, sprint fast, and throw far.

As a somewhat abbreviated range-of-motion exercise that uses many muscle groups, it can develop amazing strength and coordination. The deadlift teaches a lot of nerves to work together.

As a strength exercise, it is relatively simple and needs little equipment. Your biggest limiters to deadlifting more will eventually be how accommodating your gym manager is to loud noises and how many big plates you have available. There’s not much technical learning curve to deadlifting.

So every athlete stands to gain something from the deadlift. That leads to the second question…

How heavy should you make your deadlift?

DEADLIFTS FOR ENDURANCE ATHLETES

If you successfully deadlift 1.25 times your bodyweight for 5 clean reps, you’re about as strong as you’ll probably ever need to be. The payoff for a stronger deadlift seems to reach runners almost immediately – it strengthens your hips generally, which helps you hold your running posture longer, and thus keeps you efficient.

After that, triathletes, cyclists, and cross-country skiers seem to see comparable benefits but on a longer timeline. Building up your deadlift enhances your hinge, which increases the power you can put out with your hip joint nearly fully closed. Since that’s the posture of your sport, deadlifting builds up your performance by boosting your power output. Hit the standard above, then let the weight climb naturally.

Rowers don’t deserve to be grouped with conventional endurance athletes since strength is such a huge contributor to their ability to overcome water resistance at ever-increasing stroke frequencies…so rowers should deadlift as though they were power athletes because there is no upper limit to the benefit!

DEADLIFTS FOR FIELD SPORT ATHLETES

To the extent that you run and sprint, the deadlift supports your powerful hip extension and running posture. But the deadlift does more – it improves your grip and coordination. Grip strength correlates to ab strength (it’s a weak positive correlation; you still have to train your midsection appropriately), but the combination of both reflect neurological efficiency. That efficiency contributes to how quickly you learn new skills and how powerfully you can execute those skills. So by making you more coordinated and reinforcing your posture, the deadlift makes you a more effective athlete.

If your sport does not involve intentional collisions with other people, you’re probably set at 1.75 or 2.00 times your bodyweight for one smooth rep. If your sport does involve intentional collisions with other people, consider 2.00 times your bodyweight for 3 reps as the minimum.

DEADLIFTS FOR POWER ATHLETES

The deadlift is a part of the movements you need to thrive in your sport. Learn the Olympic lifts. Throw medicine balls. Swing kettlebells. Jump on boxes. Every one of those is built on the foundation of a sound hinge pattern – and the deadlift builds that hinge pattern.

If your sport narrowly focuses on maximum speed or maximum power, you’re doing the deadlift whether you choose it as an exercise or not. There is no relative weight limit beyond which you stop benefiting; you’re just constantly compromising between time spent heaving more iron from the floor or getting more reps in your sport. 315 lb for female athletes and 455 lb for male athletes is a good point to start asking that question.

DEADLIFTS FOR STRENGTH ATHLETES

Now, weightlifting coaches rightly argue that they don’t need the deadlift in their programs to build better lifters. They are correct…sort of. Weightlifting coaches refer to lifting a barbell from the floor as a “pull” and they do thousands of pulls each training cycle. Weightlifters absolutely deadlift in the movement pattern sense of the word – they hinge to lift a weight. There’s just a bunch of other awesome stuff they need to do with the weight after that.

Bodybuilders know the deadlift is the answer to foundational hamstring, glute, spinal erector, and forearm development. They may use a hundred variations of the classic lift, but top physique competitors get their deadlifts in.

A powerlifter wouldn’t even read this article. They know the deadlift is the king of all lifts. “Squat and bench for show; pull for dough.”

Strength athletes win when they lift the most weight…and the weight is always on the floor. So the least you should deadlift is the most you physically can. Don’t stop until you get there!

Should Athletes Deadlift?

The point is simple: if you are an athlete, you need to lift weights. Start by picking them up. No matter your sport, taking the weight off the floor is going to do good things for your performance.

To the cyclist who inspired this piece, do you need to deadlift?

Answer: Only if you want to ride faster and farther.