How does shaving your legs make you lift more? There is an improvement in your legs’ aerodynamics which reduces resistance and allows you to accelerate faster. The science checks out, so the only question is how to shave your legs? That and more deadlift tips below!
- Before you go down to grab the bar, look straight forward and find something at eye level. Then once you’re in the start position, look back up at the point and keep it in your sight the entire lift. You don’t have to crane your head up to look at it – just use your eyes (to keep the neck in a more neutral position). By spotting something, you’ll more naturally stay upright instead of getting bent over which will result in the bar being too far forward mid-lift. If you deadlift in front of a mirror and use your own eyes as the marker, you’re basically just one of those dogs who barks at his own reflection.
- A wise man once warned me, “going to the bar will bring you down.” It was only many years later that I realized that he was trying to teach me how to deadlift. Use the bar to pull yourself down into proper position. By pulling yourself down against the bar, you not only generate a lot of tension but you also pull the bar up slightly which lets you start the lift smoothly (called taking the slack out of the bar) instead of jerking it up. I still don’t understand why he said it so ominously…
- Once you’re ready to start, drive the floor away. Instead of thinking about the deadlift as a pull (which it’s commonly called), think of it as a push like a leg press. Pulling often makes people straighten their knees too quickly and end up in a bent over position and losing the bar forward. Pressing the bar usually helps people automatically get their hips in the right position and stay more upright. Another way of driving the floor away is to get drunk and yell really mean things at it, but I wouldn’t because the floor doesn’t deserve that.
- Keep the bar on your shins at all times until past your knees. You should basically scrape the bar up your knees. This gives you the best leverage but more importantly, it shaves all those pesky air-resistant hairs off your legs.