Deadlifts and Lower Back Pain: Common Causes and How To Fix Them
In recent blog posts, I’ve discussed why so many CrossFitters – and athletes in general – often struggle with back pain when squatting or performing overhead exercises. Another common movement that can cause, contribute to, or worsen existing back pain is deadlifts. Let’s look at why deadlifts can increase lower back pain, what to do if you have low back pain during or after deadlifting, and how deadlifts can improve low back pain and prevent lower back injuries.
In this blog, we will cover:
Facing your fears - why you may be scared to deadlift but should do it anyway
Common causes of low back pain while deadlifting and how to fix them
low back weakness
lack of core bracing
poor hip hinge
lack of lat engagement
anthropometrics
mobility issues
difficulty developing force
programming gaps
previous injury
Fear of having low back pain while deadlifting is common but deadlifts can help decrease pain and prevent low back injuries.
Facing your fears - Why you may be Scared to Deadlift but Should Do It Anyway
After a decade of coaching CrossFit and treating clients in my physical therapy practice, I can say that people are more scared by deadlifts than any other exercise. Sure, Olympic lifts can be daunting because they’re so technical and unfamiliar to the general population, but among strength exercises, deadlifts have the biggest intimidation factor.
One reason is that low back pain is so pervasive. Many people have dealt with low back pain. Maybe you’ve had a previous low back injury, are currently dealing with low back pain, or are fearful of having low back pain or an injury.
If you have experienced low back pain, you know how much of an impact it can have on your daily life. So asking you to perform an exercise, like deadlifting, that can cause low back pain can be scary, however deadlifting can actually strengthen your back, decrease low back pain, and help prevent injuries.
The second reason people get psyched out by deadlifting is that deadlifts can make your low back sore afterward. If a bench press workout gives you sore pecs or your biceps burn after curls, you might celebrate that. But when your back muscles get sore after doing deadlifts, you may get worried that something is wrong though often it is normal post-exercise delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).
A third fear factor is the assumption that deadlifting is hard on your back. Deadlifting can be hard on your back just like push-ups can be hard on your shoulders. But with deadlifts, people assume they should be avoided. We’ll bust this myth later on, but for now, I’ll just say that the deadlift is one of the most fundamental exercises in CrossFit and any kind of strength training.
Deadlifts are a compound movement, they increase strength and power in big muscle groups like the hamstrings, quads, and glutes, contribute to core development and stability, and, perhaps counterintuitively, deadlifts can safeguard your back by strengthening the surrounding musculature and connective tissues.
Another reason that I advocate for deadlifting is that it’s arguably the very definition of a “functional” exercise: i.e., something that transfers to daily life. Whether it’s picking up your child or grandchild, lifting a big box from your doorstep, or helping a neighbor move their couch, there are many examples when you need to get weight off the floor and move it. While there are other examples of a hip hinge pattern – like kettlebell swings, good mornings, hip thrusts and bridges, and the initial pull in the snatch and clean – the deadlift is king and prepares you to do all these other exercises well.
Common Causes of Low Back Pain While Deadlifting and how to fix them
Now that we’ve explored why deadlifts can be mentally intimidating but an important exercise to have in your training, let’s move on to factors that can cause or worsen low back pain during this exercise.
1. Low Back Weakness
More often than not, people need stronger backs. Low back weakness is a big cause of low back pain with deadlifting. If you are new to lifting weights, you may not yet developed strength in your posterior chain (hamstrings, glutes, back). However, if you are a more experienced lifter, you may have a discrepancy between leg and back strength or quad and posterior chain strength.
One way to check this is to look at your squat-to-deadlift ratio. According to StrengthLog, “the median 1RM in the deadlift is ~24% higher than in the squat”. Typically, we look for a deadlift of about 120-125% of your back squat. This ratio can be highly influenced by your mobility, anthropometrics (torso and leg length), and your back strength relative to your leg strength.
If you are new to lifting, a good goal is to deadlift 1.5x your bodyweight. If you are more experienced, then up 2x your bodyweight. If your ratios need some work then strengthening your low back can greatly improve this.
How to fix it? Strengthen your back!
Your “core” is not just the front abdominal muscles, it provides 360 degrees of support for your spine. The “posterior core” includes the back musculature (erector spinae/paraspinals, quadratus lumborum, multifidi, and lats). In addition to using exercises like planks, side planks, and hollow holds, you should include movements that specifically target the lower back in your training.
Here are some accessory exercises to build low back strength for deadlifts:
GHD Sorenson Hold (if you don’t have access to a GHD you can do this Sorenson hold bench variation)
Back Extensions
2. Lack of Core Bracing
Insufficient core strength or stability can make it difficult to maintain intraabdominal pressure, which is the key to maintaining a stable spine. Low back pain could be caused by a lack of core strength or poor bracing strategies such as losing your brace during barbell cycling while performing touch-and-go deadlifts.
How to fix it? Improve your bracing strategy.
Dial in how you breathe and brace your core to create tension to protect your low back while deadlifting. Create tension by
tightening your lats by pulling your armpits down and back and pulling the slack out of the bar
take a big breath in from your diaphragm
lock it in by tightening your abs as if you were going to cough and then holding your breath - this creates abdominal pressure.
focus on maintaining this tension as you get the bar off the ground and lower it back down
for touch-and-go reps, make sure you reset at the top before lowering the weight back down
repeat for every rep!
Try a Heavy Farmers Carry to improve core bracing.
For more details on bracing, check out my post on squatting with low back pain.
3. Poor Hip Hinge
CrossFitters and other athletes often have a hard time keeping the deadlift a hip and posterior chain dominant exercise. This is often due to relying on quad and leg strength but can also be due to mobility restrictions in the hamstrings or a lack of a good hip hinge movement pattern. It’s common to see more of a squat pattern with more knee bending and less hip movement posterior.
A poor hip hinge can also cause the spine to round, placing more stress on the low back. Though some back rounding is not always bad, it could be a sign that you aren’t loading your glutes and hamstring as much as you should.
How to fix it? Spend time dialing in your hip hinge
Get back to basics! To reset the hip hinge pattern, I often advise people to start with a dowel-assisted hip hinge or a kneeling hip hinge to work on maintaining a neutral spine while sending the hips BACK.
4. Lack of Lat Engagement
The lats are a large, fan-shaped muscle that help keep your low back stable and your spine neutral during a deadlift. If you are lacking lat strength, or simply don’t activate them well during your deadlift, then the weight of the bar can pull your shoulder forward and cause more stress to be placed on your low back.
How to fix it? Engage your lats during your set-up and throughout the deadlift
First of all, you need to know where your lats are. Though we often think of the lats as a shoulder muscle, you can see how they connect and support your spine via a large tendon. The lats help keep the bar close to you during the entire deadlift movement. This banded deadlift lat drill can help you learn what it feels like to keep your lats engaged throughout the deadlift.
5. Anthropometrics
This is a fancy way of saying the proportions of your body parts and how they relate to others. For deadlifts, the length of your legs, arms, and torso can greatly affect an optimal deadlift setup position. Often deadlifts favor those with longer arms and legs though longer limbs can also make it more difficult to find a neutral spine in the set up position.
How to fix it?
We can’t change our body’s proportions therefore we can change our positioning to the bar. As with squatting, you can experiment with the width of your feet. Some people feel better standing with wider feet in more of a sumo stance, while others prefer a more narrow stance. You can also change the width of your hands. Hands shoulder width is most common but slightly more narrow or wider could feel more stable to you.
There are many deadlift variations out there. If you have trouble finding an optimal position with a conventional deadlift, you can try
sumo deadlifts
trap bar deadlifts
elevated deadlifts
kettlebell deadlifts
Romanian deadlifts (RDLs)
single leg deadlifts
Don’t be afraid to change the deadlift variations if you are having low back pain
6. Mobility Issues
If your glutes, hamstrings, or any other part of your posterior chain is lacking mobility, you may struggle to achieve a good set-up position in the deadlift and maintain proper form, which could place more stress on the low back. It’s also important to build resilience into spinal flexion if and when you have more rounding of your spine during a deadlift.
How to fix it? Improve your hamstring, glute, and low back mobility
Here are a few exercises to work on hamstring and glute mobility and spinal flexion
7. Difficulty Developing Force
You might lack the capacity to produce maximum force or struggle to do so quickly (aka rate of force production). This comes down to developing a good leg drive. Often we see hips shooting up first which can lead to back pain with the initial pull off the ground.
Or perhaps you have a left-to-right imbalance in strength or you produce force on one side more and faster than the other. This could lead to sacroiliac joint (SI joint) pain on one side of your back.
How to fix it? Improve your leg drive
Force plate testing is an objective way to measure the force produced in a deadlift pull and also determine any differences from right to left. An isometric mid-thigh pull is not only a great way to test this, but it can also be used to train and increase strength in positions where you are weaker or have pain.
To improve your leg drive think of the deadlift more as a pushing exercise rather than a pulling exercise. Your hips and shoulders should rise off the ground at the same speed.
8. Programming Gaps
Deadlifts are a key part of CrossFit programming. But as I mentioned earlier, they are often done quickly as touch-and-go reps or as single reps dropped from the top of the rep. Deadlifts are performed differently in powerlifting or other kinds of strength training where each rep comes from a dead stop.
CrossFit athletes often do not focus on controlling the eccentric portion of the lift. They may only perform the concentric phase by dropping the weight from the top position. This can limit the development of strength in the eccentric phase which is important for developing strength and stability in the low back. Touch-and-go reps also use momentum coming off the floor so athletes may lack force production in the initial pull of the floor.
How to fix it? Work on eccentric control and dead stop deadlifts
This may not be the most efficient way to perform deadlifts in a metcon, but if you are performing deadlifts to build strength, try to work on the eccentric portion of the movement - AKA don’t drop it from the top. Also, try to perform single reps by completing one deadlift, stop, reset, and then go again. This can help eliminate weak points in your deadlift, increase force output and rate of force development, and help ensure your form isn’t falling apart midway through.
9. Previous Injury
If you’ve hurt your back before, it’s the biggest predictor of re-injury and pain. This can also predispose you to be overly sensitive to flexion or extension during deadlifts and more fearful of the movement.
How to fix it? Build Up to Full Deadlifts
Breaking deadlifting down into parts can help get back to the full version without re-injury. There are many modifications and progressions to help develop more tolerance for deadlifting. Some of the exercises that I mentioned earlier are a great starting point to build up your low back strength and endurance, like isometric mid-thigh pulls and bent over rows.
Barbell hip thrusts are another great hip hinge exercise that target your glutes, hamstrings, and the rest of the posterior chain without placing excess stress on your low back.
Then you can work on elevated deadlifts to decrease the range of motion and gradually work your way down to pulling from the floor. There are also many other deadlift variations you can try (mentioned above) that may be more tolerated than conventional deadlifts.
Before you give up on deadlifts, I hope you give some of these solutions a try. Deadlifts are a great functional exercise that can increase your strength, decrease low back pain, and make you feel like a badass.
Want to further strengthen your low back, bulletproof it for deadlifts, squats, Olympic lifts, CrossFit, and daily life, and overcome pain and injury? Check out my online low-back accessory work program!
