The deadlift is a great exercise which can be done throughout pregnancy and into the postnatal phase. It is a compound exercise which means it works a lot of muscles. These include:
- Glutes
- Hamstrings
- Quads
- Lats
- Traps
- Lower back
- Lots of smaller stabilising muscles especially in stabilising the shoulders during the pull phase
- And other smaller muscles in the forearms and abdominals
From this list, you can see that it is such a great exercise to include throughout pregnancy and afterwards to help strengthen all those muscles that may have weakened. Also, it is essentially an exercise mimicking picking something up of the floor! Therefore it is a very functional exercise and will help maintain that correct hip-hinge position when picking something up, helping us to stay mobile and supple as we age.
How to do a deadlift
You can do a conventional or sumo deadlift. I am going to talk about the conventional deadlift here as I feel it is most relevant to the general population.
The conventional deadlift involves setting your feet about hip width apart and placing the arms just outside of the legs. You can use a barbell, dumbbells or kettlebells for this exercise. Throughout pregnancy, I recommend using either kettlebells or dumbbells as the bump mat hinder the bar movement. In the postnatal phase, it is completely up to you although I still suggest using the kettlebells or dumbbells as I think having separate weights makes you more aware of an imbalances between the left and right side of your body. This means if you notice anything, you can work on that side a bit more, doing single leg deadlifts.
There are essentially 3 parts to the deadlift:
1. The Setup
- Place the fit about hip-width apart
- Really root your feet into the ground so you have a strong stance
- Set the weights just in front of your feet
- Maintain a relatively straight shin angle
- Hinge from the hips by driving your bum backwards
- Maintain a slight bend in the knees, loading the hamstring
2. Initiating the movement
- Pick the weights up in your hands, maintaining the initial position
- You then want to breath, tense your body and really push the floor away with your feet as you lift the weight of the floor
- The weight should slightly graze your shins as they come up in line with the knees
- Make sure the shoulders are directly over the weights
3. Stand Tall
- As the weights pass your knees, you want to thrust your hips forward
- You want to contract your glutes here and bring your hips under your shoulders
- You want to hold the weights for a minute before you start the return journey back towards the floor
- If the weight is heavy, you can just drop the weight
- However, especially in the prenatal stage, I would recommend using a lighter weight which you can lower under control and the slower you make it, the more time under tension you have and therefore the stronger you will become
- As you lower, drive those hips back, maintain a slight bend in the knees and load the hamstrings
During the prenatal phase, as each trimester progresses, you may find that you can’t reach the floor. Therefore, raise the weights on a step or bench or have someone hand them too you so you can still perform the exercise.
You want to aim for 10-15 repetitions and 3 sets. During the prenatal phase, with each trimester, you may need to lower the weight, drop a set or lower the amount of repetitions. Make sure you don’t over exert yourself and listen to your body. If it becomes uncomfortable at any stage of the movement, cease doing the exercise.
Conclusion
This is a great all around exercise that targets a lot of different muscles. It is perfectly safe for you to do throughout your pregnancy and is very beneficial to help maintain that hip-hinge movement which you will certainly need when your little one arrives.
Always start with a lighter weight than you think you can lift so that you can perfect the movement first. Even better, practice it without any weights and get used to the movement pattern before loading it with weights.
