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During deadlifts, should you lower the weight slowly and controlled or (almost) let it fall to the floor? What are the advantages and disadvantages of both methods?
Deadlifts or ego-lifts?
I have described the phenomenon of “ego-lifting” several times before: Worrying more about the impression you make on other gym-goers than about the correct training technique. The most famous examples are:
- Taking more weight than you can actually handle, so you do everything except the correct execution to lift the weight up and show everyone how “strong” you are.
- Exaggerated shouting. Like a Volkswagen Polo with a ridiculously large exhaust making more noise than actually providing power.
Some who are guilty of this are unaware of any wrongdoing. They simply mimic what they see around them. They hear the milk sloshing, but can’t find the nipple. They see someone squeezing out their last repetitions, cheating a bit to be able to go “beyond failure”. However, they themselves start cheating from the first repetition. They hear a big guy screaming on the last reps and then start screaming themselves on the first reps of a set of 15 repetitions. If your weight is set so that you can do 15 repetitions, those first repetitions should be so light that you certainly don’t need to mentally pump yourself up by screaming throughout the entire gym. Besides, there’s nothing functional about increasing the volume by 50 decibels just because there happens to be a pretty lady practicing next to you.
Skip the Eccentric Phase
A third example is skipping the eccentric phase of an exercise, so you only perform it halfway. An exercise can consist of three parts:
- Concentric phase: The muscle contracts while it shortens. Such as when you raise the weight in biceps curls.
- Isometric: The muscle contracts while maintaining the same length. Such as when you keep your biceps tense without raising or lowering the weight.
- Eccentric: The muscle contracts while it lengthens. Such as when you lower the weight in biceps curls.
I have written an extensive article about the importance of the eccentric phase where you can find all the evidence with studies. Here’s a brief explanation. During the eccentric phase, the different motor units of the muscle are pulled apart by external load (such as a weight pulled down by gravity), but resist this by contracting. This creates increased stress, allowing faster hypertrophy. So, when it comes to building muscle mass, the eccentric phase is crucial.
However, as a spectator, the eccentric phase doesn’t make an impression. In weightlifting, for example, it’s only about getting the weight up. How you lower it doesn’t matter as long as you don’t drop it on someone’s toes, for example, or if there are rules about lowering it. For example, looking at biceps curls, you can save a lot of energy by skipping the eccentric phase by not resisting when lowering. Instead of lowering it slowly and steadily in, for example, 3 seconds, you can just “let it fall” (your hand with the dumbbell, not just the dumbbell of course). With the energy you save, you can then do extra repetitions or take more weight. So, the question is what your goal is: lifting as much weight or doing as many repetitions as possible, or building as much muscle mass as possible?
In practice, I see many people skip this phase while I know that muscle growth is their main goal. Either out of ignorance of the importance of the eccentric phase, or to be able to lift more weight and make “more of an impression”.
Deadlifts: Training or Floor Destruction
The deadlift is typically an exercise where I regularly see all the mentioned forms of ego-lifting frequently combined. However, what personally bothers me the most is consciously dropping the weights on the floor at every repetition. Cases where no resistance is offered when lowering the weight. Not only to save energy, but seemingly to announce to the entire gym with every thud that the
king of the gym is back in the house. It seems as if in those cases, the barbell is only being held to prepare for the next repetition. Sometimes it even seems like the weight gets an extra push on the way down. I train in a gym that still has one owner instead of a chain with a headquarters somewhere far away. An owner who is often present, knows the costs of the floor, wants to maintain a good relationship with his downstairs neighbors, and has already kicked out members specifically because of “pile-driving deadlifts”.
Different Deadlifts for Different Purposes
As mentioned earlier, many things are imitated without knowing why they are done that way. I therefore took into account that there are circumstances in which it makes sense to skip the eccentric phase when deadlifting and to let the weight drop quickly and hard.
Injury Prevention
On some forums, members indicate not to offer any resistance to the barbell when it comes lower than the knees, the last part when lowering. I don’t quite understand this.
The deadlift can be divided into two parts when lowering:
- The first part where mainly the hamstrings and lower back are stressed. Depending on the flexibility of the hamstrings, this can be until the barbell reaches the knees, but it can also be earlier or later.
- The second part where the hamstrings do less, the knees are bent more, and the quadriceps become more active. If done correctly!
To lower the weight that last bit, you don’t need to put extra strain on your lower back. You keep it fixed from the point where the hamstrings cannot be stretched any further, and then the quadriceps take over. If, on the other hand, you continue to bend your back (and get a rounded back instead of a neutral or hollow back), you indeed increase the risk of injuries. With correct execution, this seems to me not to be a good reason. Moreover, you then have to lift the weight up again from that low point. If you’re concerned about injuries during the eccentric part, why would this then go well during the concentric part?
What is possible, however, is that when transitioning from eccentric to concentric, you don’t pay attention to fixing the back, causing it to become less and less in the hollow or neutral position and more and more in the rounded position. Or forgetting to keep the barbell as close as possible. This indeed increases the risk of injuries but has to do with poor technique in other areas.
I haven’t found any research showing that lowering the weight slowly during deadlifts leads to injuries. It should be noted, however, that most studies unfortunately only focus on the concentric phase (in the context of Olympic weightlifting, for example).
Set or Single Reps
Some make a distinction between doing a set and doing single repetitions. Because they do single repetitions, they let the weight drop. However, this is not relevant in the discussion about lowering or dropping the barbell in deadlifts. For this, the only difference should be whether you maintain tension on the muscles at the end of the movement downwards (and make a series) or completely relax before continuing (single repetitions).
This does not mean that for single repetitions you should not offer resistance to the weight at the top or halfway through the movement. You can still lower the weight controlled until the barbell touches the ground, and only then relax. You can do single reps while controlling the weight.
Isolating Hamstrings
I can think of two more reasons myself.
I divide my leg training into two parts with the front (quadriceps) on one day and the back (hamstrings and calves) on the other day. For me personally, this means that on the day before training hamstrings, I try to isolate them as much as possible from the quadriceps. As mentioned, you activate the quadriceps more and the hamstrings less in that low part when you only bend your knees (if done correctly). So, I could choose to find this low part less important at that time.
Concentric Strength Priority
Another reason could be that as a powerlifter or strongman, you have a completely different goal than growing your muscles. Training the eccentric phase doesn’t make you much stronger in your concentric phase (although it does promote more muscle mass). This was shown in two of the studies I mentioned in the article about eccentric training.
For powerlifters and strongmen, the goal is to lift as much weight as possible (often as quickly or as often as possible for strongmen). If you want to specialize in this, it makes sense to focus mainly on the correct training mode for this, and indeed, emphasis on the concentric phase is recommended. You then save a lot of energy during training that you can spend extra on your specialty. Also, you experience more muscle soreness (due to the higher load) if you train the eccentric part well. Great for muscle mass but not if you want to work on your technique two days later. Also, a combat athlete who trains more on explosive power doesn’t benefit much from training the eccentric phase (except perhaps during literal resistance against throws and grips).
If you want to compete in a certain weight class, you also want to prevent “useless” muscle growth. If your muscles increase in mass while not getting stronger in the concentric phase, you may have to end up in a heavier class without getting stronger. For the same reason that competitive kickboxers don’t benefit much from big biceps. They are not functional for the sport but can put you in a heavier class.
In videos of the CrossFit games, I saw that the weight was even completely dropped at the top. Well, if that’s what you’re training for, why waste energy on lowering it?
Missed Anything?
As mentioned, I couldn’t find much in the research on deadlift techniques. If you know of any other reasons to “drop” the weight in deadlifts, I would love to hear them.
