You Gotta Deadlift

You’re not alone if deadlifts cause your anxiety levels to rise so high that you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning. That you dont want to train any more and youre suddenly content with being 30kg over weight. 

It’s perfectly normal. 

They are brutal. There is no bullshitting a deadlift. There is no escaping the total mind and body fucking they inflict on anyone crazy enough to partake. 

I’m constantly told by clients they’ve spent the whole day dreading what they are about to do. 

My response is, “Only the day? Shit, I’ve been dreading every deadlift session for months. I start dreading them from the moment I write the program. The only time I get to relax from that dread is when I’m actually doing the sets. But the moment they are done, in amongst trying to get my breath back and figure out where I am, the slow realisation of what I just did becomes clear and then what I need to do next time, and the dread kicks back in.“

But I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

I’ve said this over and over and over: training is about sending signals to your body that it needs to change. 

Nothing, no exercise does this more effectively than a deadlift. 

Yes other exercises and movements can destroy you. But you’re not doing muscle ups or burpees with hundreds of kilos attached to your body. 

A squat, when done correctly comes close. But you can cheat a squat. Just go a bit shorter when it gets hard. There is no cheating a deadlift. The bottom is the bottom and the top is the top. You either lifted it from the bottom to the top or you didn’t. Form and technique don’t change that. Lift with the ugliest or prettiest form and you still had to get from the bottom to the top. 

A deadlift is about the purest expression of strength there is: bend over and pick something up.  

There is nothing more functional. 

For all the crippling, mind fucking anxiety they bring they will reward you with a mental strength increase like no other. If you can conquer a weight that was previously unmovable, there isn’t much you can’t do. You and you alone had to push your body through the training to build that strength to lift the weight that once laughed at you. Take that mental toughness and apply it to anything in life. 

For all the back, glute, hamstring pain from rep after rep you will find your strength rising to levels unseen before in your training, with a direct carry over to every other exercise you do. 

Deadlifting can literally change every aspect of your life. You might laugh. You might think I’m crazy. Maybe I am. 

But I speak from experience. 

It always pains me when people ask to not do deadlifts because they are too hard. I get an instant jolt of anger at the disrespect being shown to the greatest exercise there is. 

You don’t want to build the strongest body you possibly can? You don’t want to change your body in the shortest time possible? Ok cool. I don’t advise that. But thats none of my business.

Think of the feelings of nervous, anxious terror you experience when you approach that person you like for the first time. You’ve been rehearsing your words for weeks. Going over your moves in your head every waking moment. Imagining the joy and bliss as it all comes together and they respond that they too have noticed you and they like what they see. 

Now it’s time. 

Will you trip and fall over as you step up? Humiliating yourself and destroying any chance of impressing them? 

Will you go to speak only to cough and sputter making some dying animal noise and have them look back you with confused pity? 

Will they politely excuse themselves saying they have to be somewhere to see someone that isn’t you. 

Or, will you nail it? Will you step with confidence and deliver your words perfectly and get the response that you’ve been dreaming of? 

You wont know unless you try.

It’s no different too deadlifting. The anxiety and excitement will keep you awake at night and take over your thoughts. It will literally change the way you live and go about your day. 

It might end in a giant pile of embarrassment and failure or the stars may align and you do something that changes your life forever. 

Either way, if it doesn’t terrify or excite you it’s not worth doing.

You wont know unless you try.