Australian Strength Coach

One of the coolest things about coaching high-level athletes is that sometimes you teach… and sometimes you learn.

Here I’m working with Australia’s number one weightlifter, , who can clean & jerk over 200kg at under 90kh bodyweight. We were working on his deadlift technique, and this turned into a really interesting discussion.

One thing many lifters get wrong in the deadlift is trying to lock the knees and hips out at the same time.

When it comes to deadlifting, the knees need to lock out first.

Why?

Because if the knees stay bent while the hips come through, the barbell has nowhere to go except up the thighs, often causing the bar to “ramp”. An exaggerated version of this becomes hitching, which in powerlifting is a no lift.

For a deadlift, the strategy is this:

Maintain the torso angle until the barbell passes the knees. At this point, lock the knees hard, and then push the hips through, in that order.

Have a look at how this presents in Kyle’s 300kg deadlift. It’s an incredibly strong lift, but you can see a slight ramp as the knees and hips finish together.

What was really interesting is that Kyle taught me something here.

This goes against everything weightlifters learn.

In Olympic weightlifting, the knees and hips extend much more simultaneously because the goal is different. In the clean, you need powerful hip drive to project the bar vertically.

So although this is not the strategy I’d recommend for a deadlift, it makes perfect sense why elite weightlifters naturally move this way.

Technique should always match the task.

Thanks Kyle, I learned something valuable here 👊

Spine positioning for a strong deadlift is more complex than simply “arch your back.”

A lot of people are taught to arch as hard as possible to avoid spinal flexion, often out of fear of injuring a disc.

But it’s not flexion that we should fear.

In fact, an exaggerated arch isn’t the strongest position either.

If you understand the anatomy of the spine, excessive arching unloads the larger, stronger structures designed to bear load, the vertebral bodies and discs, in favour of smaller structures like the facet joints.

That’s not stronger, and arguably not the safest way to load the spine either.

Instead, I teach the opposite.

I teach lifters to gently unload the facet joints so we can position more of the load through the strongest structures of the spine.

One of the cues I use for this is:

Ribs down.

This is not rounding the spine like a fishing rod.

It’s avoiding excessive extension and finding a stronger braced position.

The strongest deadlifters in the world, and virtually every deadlift world record, are performed this way. Not excessively arched.

Important context: I’m specifically referring to the deadlift, where spinal loading is at its highest.

Olympic weightlifting is different. A clean & jerk or sn**ch may require a different torso position because the movement demands are different and the spinal loading is significantly lower than what can be expressed in a maximal deadlift.

The spine is not fragile.

And some degree of spinal flexion, when well braced and controlled, is not only something that shouldn’t be feared, it may actually be the stronger position.

“Precision beats power. Timing beats speed.”

That quote from stuck with me ever since I heard him say it after knocking out Jose Aldo.

The punch wasn’t wildly fast or ridiculously powerful. It was precise. Perfect timing. Perfect position.

And honestly, I think the same principle applies to deadlifting.

A lot of people try to create momentum with a dynamic start before they’ve mastered position. They attempt to be explosive and even build momentum and haven’t refined the precise start position .

Can it work? Of course some people have mastered the dynamic start.

But precision beats power.

The strongest point for the bar to leave the floor is directly in line with your centre of base of support, your midfoot.

That’s why I teach people to start with the bar completely still, exactly where it needs to break from the ground.

Master the start position first. Master precision and timing before trying to add speed or momentum.

“But Thor rolls the bar in…”

Yes, because he’s practised that technique tens of thousands of times and refined it to an elite level.

Most people make the mistake of copying what the best in the world do without understanding that mastery came first.

In fact, even Thor’s dynamic start has negatively affected him. At Eisenhart in Germany during his 505kg deadlift, the carpet on the platform gathered as he rolled the bar in under load, creating an uneven roll in and making the lift harder than it should have been.

Six weeks later, without that issue, he pulled 510kg and looked significantly stronger.

So back to my advice -
Precision beats power!
If in doubt, slow it down, master the precision BEFORE you introduce speed.

missed the 515kg deadlift attempt at the Enhanced Games…

But was he actually strong enough to lift it?
After helping coach the prep, I wanted to give some context around what actually happened.

At this level, there is zero margin for error.
Bodyweight matters. Timing matters. Peaking matters. Conditions matter.

And when you’re attempting something no human in history has ever done before, even the smallest variables can make a difference.

The big question…

Do I think Thor is strong enough to conventionally deadlift 515kg?

Yes.

Watch the full breakdown and let me know your thoughts below.

The barbell won’t leave the floor in a deadlift until it’s in line with your midfoot.

That means your setup matters.

A lot of people squat too deep into their deadlift setup trying to maximise leg drive… but in doing so, they push the bar too far forward just like how is demonstrating in this video.

Here’s the problem:

The bar is going to return to your midfoot before it leaves the floor anyway.

That’s why you often see the hips shoot up in the deadlift. The body is repositioning itself into a stronger, more efficient pulling position.

The further the bar moves away from your centre of balance, the harder the lift becomes.

Set up with the bar over your midfoot from the start and keep it there.

In this video, I had to teach to slow down her squat.

Not because speed is bad.

But because speed without tension is a problem.

A lot of people are taught the idea of:

“Fast down = fast up.”

And to a degree, there is truth to that.

A faster descent can help us utilise momentum, elastic energy, and the stretch reflex.

That works with a tennis ball.

Drop it fast, and it bounces back up fast.

But humans aren’t tennis balls.

We still need to maintain muscular tension, positioning, precision, and control under load.

And this becomes even more important as the weight gets heavier.

If you descend too quickly without maintaining tension, you don’t rebound.

You crash.

This is where I like to use the basketball analogy.

An effective squat bounce looks like a pumped-up basketball.

It absorbs force and rebounds.

An ineffective squat looks like a flat basketball.

It hits the floor and sticks.

And this is exactly what was happening here.

She was dropping too quickly, losing tension at the bottom, and making the hardest part of the squat even harder.

So I introduced pause squats.

Why?

Because if you can pause in the hardest position, you’re forced to maintain tension where it matters most.

After a few sets, we brought back the normal squat.

The result?

Slightly slower on the way down.

Much stronger and faster on the way up.

Interestingly, many of the best powerlifters in the world squat with far more control than people realise.

Weightlifters may descend much faster because they need speed to get underneath the bar with their high speed lifts (clean & jerk and sn**ch).

But powerlifters, whose goal is to lift the heaviest load possible, often prioritise tension, control, and precision to stay tight under heavy loads.

In this video, was using a hand position that felt comfortable, but it was making it harder to create the upper body tension needed to hold the bar in place.

When your grip is too wide, as the weight gets heavier the bar can feel like it’s going to roll down the back. To compensate, many lifters pull their elbows back and shrug their shoulders up to stop the bar from rolling down.

When you shrug, you turn your lats off and your lats are one of the strongest muscles for bracing the trunk.

This is why I teach my lifters to hold the bar as close as your shoulder mobility allows. This wedges the bar on your back and stops it from rolling down, and to complete upper back brace, I teach the lifter to pull the elbows back to engage the mid back muscles which stop the upper back from rounding, and combine this with elbows down to engage the lats. The lats are one of the strongest muscles for bracing the spine because they cross such a large distance of the torso. When they are engaged properly the help prevent stops the lifter from folding in half when they squat.

Have a look at the final comparison video of Kelly to see how correcting her grip and upper back position improved her squat.

Tucking your elbows is the WRONG cue, if you don’t know why you’re doing it! 🤔

Of course there needs to be some degree of “tucking” but not too much.

Watch this video if you want to understand where you need to place your elbows when you bench press.

It’ll make your bench press stronger when you do it right 👊

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