One exercise I can’t live without? Easily the deadlift.
Now, the squat is supposedly “the king of all exercises”, but I’d argue the deadlift as a better choice if you had to chose one (you don’t, so just do both).
The hip hinge movement trained by the deadlift is extremely important for overall health, and for building a great looking body.
We tend to be extremely imbalanced, with the muscles on the front side of our body being much stronger than those on the backside. This leads to rounded forward shoulders, and the spine in a constant extended position. This results in back pain, shoulder pain, and poor posture.
Most of us suffer from an anterior pelvic tilt (arched back, butt sticking out), due to a combination of:
- Tight, over dominant quads and hip flexors
- Weak and/or inactive glutes and hamstrings.
While the glutes and hamstrings are still involved in the squat, it’s still a quad dominant movement for most. So for those with an anterior pelvic tilt, strictly squatting would make the issue worse.
The deadlift addresses these common weakness beautifully, training the glutes and hamstrings very effectively.
The deadlift also trains a huge amount of overall muscle mass. If you’re only doing one exercise for the rest of your life, you chose the one that works the most muscles, right? Getting strong at the deadlift requires strong glutes, hamstrings, back, traps, and even quads.
The deadlift also has tons of different variations to make it work for most anyone: Barbell deadlift, Sumo deadlift, trap bar deadlift, Romanian deadlift. All effective choices to train a ton of muscle at once.
From an aesthetics perspective, the deadlift has amazing carryover to developing both the upper and lower body. Booty and back at the same time. What more could you want?
Lucky for you, you don’t have to choose just one exercise. But, if you’re not deadlifting already, I highly recommend you start, after checking out this series on how to perform the movement properly:
Mind Pump- The Proper Way To Perform The Conventional Deadlift Part I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rIp9T5ig4A
Mind Pump- The Proper Way To Perform The Conventional Deadlift Part II:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFCyGXu-_vo
