Hi
The deadlift is the king of exercises. If asked which exercise I would do for the rest of my life if not allowed any others..it would be this.It got it's name from the technique that Roman soldiers would use to pick up the dead
on the battlefield.
A hip hinge is the movement your body goes through in deadlifts, kettlebell swings or correctly picking something heavy off the floor. Ideally it is a minimal knee bend and maximal knee bend.
Think about the positions we spend our day in.
Any amount of sitting for too long bends us over, inhibits our posture, switches off our Glutes (butt!) and shortens the hip flexor (bending) muscles. This
effect can possibly be linked to pretty much any type of pain in the back, hips and even legs.
Adding a hip hinge exercise can counteract all the above as it trains pretty much every muscle on the back of your body.
As with the squat, the whole technique/ form is designed to keep the load directly above the heels/ back mid portion of the foot. See below picture showing how we need to start a sumo deadlift, another great hip hinge
exercise. Looks very similar to a squat bottom position, however, as you will see in the video at the end it's a different move.
The load (in this case a kettlebell) must travel in a very straight line...basically following the green arrow line. As with a squat the heels need to do the work. It doesn't have to be a barbell or Kettlebell from the floor...you could also hold the top of a dumbell or large bottle of water to add a simple
load.
