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Deadlifts and abs [Article]

Posted by Pascal Landshoeft

Oct 23, 2018 9:30:00 AM

Deadlift and abs

Deadlift and abs

 

The deadlift alone will not give you a six-pack. You will need a proper diet plan to achieve this goal. The diet plan will also be more important than the work you put in the gym. 

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What are your goals

 

Why are you looking for deadlifts and abs? You want to look and lift like Stan Efferding? Are you wondering whether the deadlift trains the abs sufficiently? Do you want to improve your deadlift by strengthening your abs? Whatever it is, it is important that you know what your goals are and plan accordingly. There are three main goal sets in fitness:

 

  • Looks 
  • Performance 
  • Health 

 

Looks are the holy grail of fitness. This is where supplements and personal trainer hours are being sold. You probably strive to look like Wonder Woman or Brad Pitt in Fight Club. Prepare yourself to make sacrifices. It is hard to obtain that perfect Hollywood look. Stay away from sugar and alcohol. You might even have to take some performance enhancing drugs. The upside of this goal setting is that it gets highly rewarded. When you look attractive it will be easier to get to work, find a partner and get what you want. The downside is that you will be exposed to more stress.

 

The other group is interested in performance. Results are most important to you. The work in the gym will be intense. Food will support your ambition, but it will not be the center of achieving your goals. You will pick your exercises based on how they help your sport. Performance enhancing substances have to be administered carefully to not be detected if they are taken at all. An injury is something you deal with on a regular basis and work around. Your choices might not always be healthy or look the best, but they will get results. 

 

The last group is the health nuts. You are mainly interested in balance. You avoid extremes to stay injury free. You see your diet as an opportunity to explore and try new things. Supplements do not make it on your shelf. You will not obtain a great physique or win trophies. The good thing is you won’t care anyway. 

 

As you are looking for deadlifts and abs you are in the Looks and Performance bracket. You probably have not decided yet whether looks or performance are most of important to you. Ideally, you want both. You have not realized yet that prioritizing between the two makes it more likely to get one of them. 

 

The barbell deadlift 

 

When you talk about the deadlift most people will think about the conventional barbell deadlift. You can also do sumo deadlifts or trap bar deadlifts.

 

The deadlift starts with the bar in the floor. Place your mid feet under the barbell. Grip the bar with both hands. Get tight and keep your back straight. Initiate the pull by pushing your legs into the ground. Keep your arms straight while you pull. Straighten your hips and lick the bar in position. You have completed a deadlift. If you want to know more details follow this blog. 

 

The biggest advantages of the deadlift are its comprehensiveness and manliness. There are only very few movements where you can move as much weight as with the deadlift. Here is something primal and raw about this which I otherwise would miss in my life. 

 

The biggest disadvantages of the deadlift are its risk of injury and the lack of explosiveness. These big weights can strain your back. Especially when the movement is poorly performed. The deadlift is also not the best lift to develop explosiveness. The Olympic lifts will help in this regard but are harder to learn. 

 

Ab training

 

The six-pack is probably the feature that many people in the fitness industry strive after. Billions of sit-ups are done every day to look better. All for the better of humanity. There are many ways to train your abs. I personally like 

 

20 barbell weighted sit-ups

20 side bends with a 20kg kettlebell 

 

And three rounds of this after your main workout. Other exercises you can do are

 

  • Planks
  • Leg Raises
  • GHD sit-ups
  • Crunches 
  • Ballerina twists
  • Russian twists 

 

The choices are limitless. 

 

The biggest advantages of ab training are that it is easy to do and targets hard to train areas. Ab training does not need any extra material. You could do it on the train if it was not so embarrassing. Your abdominal muscles are also pretty small. That makes it hard to target them for training in multi-joint movement. 

 

The biggest disadvantages of an training are that it takes time and results are minimal. Your core will grow slower than the bigger muscles in your legs and back. Even if they grow at the same pace it is harder to see improvement. 

 

Does the deadlift train your abs? 

 

There is a debate out there that deadlifts under 500 pounds do not train the abs. Therefore beginning lifters need to add in ab work. 

 

A good few powerlifters report that the limiting factor to their performance is their core muscles. Maybe starting early with ab Work would have helped. 

 

The deadlift does train the abs but not to the same extent as dedicated targeted work. The deadlift is also not enough to get a six-pack. This is mainly driven by your diet. Avoid to talk yourself Into believing that deadlifting will get you ripped. It won’t.

 

 

Further reading

 

 

 

Topics: Lift stronger, Deadlift, Fitness, Strength, Diet