alright guys so today I'm going to show you how to deadlift like a bodybuilder so stay tuned I think you'll enjoy this workout alright so here we are back at our Shaq gym and Pickerington Ohio and one of the things I've always loved was dead lifting so I want to give you a little bit of history because we're gonna do a back workout today that has a lot of dead lifting in it now I never dead lifted at all - I was in college actually it when I went to Capitol University in Columbus and I was about 21 22 years old actually I was 22 or 23 years old for I ever did that lift and power lifters are the guys who showed me how to deadlift now bodybuilders I subsequently went to Westside barbell training with Louie Simmons the Godfather of powerlifting I love that guy and we did you know powerlifting meets there so I learned how the deadlift like a power lifter and I had guys like Dave take you got you guys know him one of my best friends and when you deadlift like a power lifter it's very different than if he dead looked like a bodybuilder now when you deadlift like a power lifter I kind of look at it as three different phases I look at it as there's kind of an ascending phase where you're coming off the ground okay that's a lot of mid trapezius it's a lot of spinal erectors and of course you've got a lot of leg drive involved because you're coming out the ground I think you guys probably all know this then you kind of get to this phase where you're it's we know I call it the knee passage phase so you're kind of going past your knees you're going like mid-shin you like mid-shin and now you're going past your knees okay that tends to take the stress a little bit more to your upper traps not your middle traps and of course your lower back continues to work as well and then you get to this final phase where you lock it out so you went past the knee passage phase now you're locking it out so you're standing up straight you're flexing your glutes you're not hyper extending your spinal erectors or your spine I should say you're just kind of locking out that's a lot of upper trap too so you got to come to this beginning phase where it's a lot of mid trap I've got some leg drive involve your lower back get to that knee passage phase where you're shifting a lot of stress now to your upper traps and your spinal erectors and then you get to the top and it's a lot of upper traps now here's the reason why I'm telling you all this I didn't get a big back lack wise deadlifting they did nothing for my lats however I did get very heavily muscled traps and a very heavily muscled lower back my spinal erectors and traps did great from deadlifting they overpowered my lats actually fast forward many years later I started doing rack pools for my back as a bodybuilder and I did them a lot different that's what I'm going to do today this is what I'm going to show you there's some subtle techniques as a body builder that will help you engage your lats more okay now one final thing before we get started one of the things I really enjoyed was pulling at different pin heights that was actually an idea that Dave Tate Louis Simmons gave me so sometimes we pulled for mid-shin sometimes we pulled from like our knee cap you know kind of right around that area anyways and that makes sense as a pilot there because now you're getting an upper trap mid trap but it takes kind of the lower body out of it quite a bit not completely obviously but it also puts you in a position where you can really lock your lats in and really use your lats you know your lats do extend your shoulder and it also can be a heck of an isometric action so now what these rock pools will do today you can really flex your lats you get a lot more loud engagement and I found my switch of this style I actually started feeling a pump in my lats if you're getting a pump in your last it's working your lats or else you wouldn't get a lot of blood in there so what we're going to do today is we're going to start at MiG's shin ok so we're gonna start at mid-shin you're going to get some mid tribe you're gonna get some lower back but I'm really gonna focus on flexing my lats and pulling my elbows back as I ascend and I'm flexing my last so that's what I want to watch you to start with so we're gonna start we're gonna work our way up we're gonna do sets of five but we're doing it from about mid chin okay alright so we're getting warmed up here I'm not wearing a bell but as we get to the heavier weight I'll absolutely wear a belt and you notice I'm not using straps but as we get to a heavier weight I will use straps so we're going about mid-shin probably a bit higher than mid-shin mid chin would probably be a little bit lower but this is still good pin high now it's a power lifter we were taught to grip it and rip it was the old power thing saying so you get your body tight BAM you just rip it right there's a bodybuilder what I'm doing is I'm flexing my time I'm sitting down and I'm flexing my lats so my lats are flexed and as I come up I'm pushing my elbows back and I'm flexing my last okay [Applause] so keep your lats tight and as you come up pull your elbows back that actually gives you a little bit of rhomboid engagement too so I can feel the blood one of my last and that's what we want [Music] all right so one of the good questions I get is where do you put your feet if you want a min you want them out you know just kind of how do you position your body in general and I think about it as how are you going to be in a position to produce the most force so my mind I think athletically I think okay if I was gonna do a vertical lead where would I do a vertical leap from what I do it from here probably not what I do it from here probably not probably somewhere around here so probably somewhere around shoulder-width now what will happen is everybody's structure is a little different some people have longer arms longer legs along their spines so that's just a starting point you'll see some guys you go a little wider and some guys will come in a little closer so what I'm saying is I would start probably where you do a vertical lead from and then and then play around with it and you might find another position where you're a little more a little stronger so there's no perfect answer but that's how I would approach it and I actually had my feet in just a little bit closer than what I would do vertical leap [Applause] all right so the other thing I want to mention is I like to do rack pulls with a rest-pause so I like to set the bar down reset lock everything in and do the wrap I don't like the bouncing I just never been a big fan of that and I think I think if you reset it'll make it more powerful and explosive anyway so here we go moving our way up slowly but surely Oh oh all right so when you get up to a weight that's so heavy all of a sudden you can't flex your lats as much and it's more just a dogfight to get the weight up that's when as a bodybuilder you should cut it it's a pirate there man that's great but as a bodybuilder now we're not feeling in our last as much so we're gonna stop now that was the first part of the deadlift routine here's the second part now we're going to change the pin height so we started around our shins a little bit about mid chin now I'm going to rock this weight up here and I'm gonna pull the pins up so now we're gonna pull a little higher now that weight that got that was a little too heavy should be about right because now I'll be in a stronger position to pull and use my lats so you'll notice the next set we do will be where we left off where it was quite a little bit too heavy but it'll be from a higher pin height so there we go so i rack the weight up here and I moved the pins so now they're they're up to about knee level so they're up a little higher now and I'm gonna pick up here where I left off I'm still gonna do five and you still want to use your lats so I'm locking in on flex on my lats [Music] alright so with the lower penthouse we just kept on going up until the weight got heavy enough to where we kind of lost the feeling in our lats and then we moved a pan up and that weight actually was perfect so I left off with four plates then I move the pins up and that floor plate was a hard eight and I can still feel my lats so what you want to do here is you're just done two sets of five there's no need to do three four or five sets two sets of five it's ten really hard reps don't do any more than that that's plenty this is my second set of five it's my last set here all right so one more thing I wanted to mention if you notice I'm lowering a weight with control what you see a lot of power lifters do is just drop the weight at the top and that's that's what I would do too if I was a pirate so there's a bodybuilder you're looking for a little more hypertrophy in your spinal erectors you want to bigger and when you lower it with control that's a ton of tension on your spinal erectors so if your goal is to grow and this is a body workout I wouldn't drop the weight I would lower with control with your lats and with your spinal erectors all right all right so now we want to give our lower back a break so you can't go wrong with a supported t-bar row watch how I Drive my elbows back I think most people they just don't pull the weight up high enough but you want to get your elbows back really get your rear delt your rhomboids your traps get that whole upper back area this is a great exercise look Hey whoa [Music] alright so when the rows are doing here one about four sets of eight again remember get those elbows high and get them back real far so four sets of eight on this so now we're moving on to a neutral grip pull down now a lot of times you'll see me do a pull down with a stretch where I let my shoulders come up and I really reach that's good for the stretch it's not necessarily good for the lat tension though so I like to mix it up what I'm doing now is if I got my shoulders pushed down and I'm flexing my light so I'm staying I'm keeping my shoulder right there and I'm squeezing my lats I'm not letting my shoulder come up and kind of letting the tension come off my lower life so push your shoulders down okay squeeze your lats and then keep them there the whole time so you just feel a ton of tension so I want four sets of ten here this is our fourth set of ten again keep changing your last the whole time keep them tight the whole time what all right so we did all the dead lifts for spinal erectors and lats and we did those supported rows for lower traps or on Voyager delts that we need to pull down for upper lats I want to do a little more lat work so our fourth exercise we're doing a dumbbell row with a neutral grip so we already did the supported row but as with a pronated grip so this is a more lot more lat specific [Applause] [Music] okay that's pretty light so we're gonna go up alright guys so well nose rose I just finished four sets of ten the heavyweight was only the last set so some of the reps were or some of the previous sets were not all out okay that's it for back today so I hope you enjoyed those rack pulls those are really cool and you know really we hit the hit our entire back we got our rhomboids our lats spinal erectors and that's it man I appreciate you guys watching I appreciate the support so we'll see you next time [Music]