Couch to Deadlift: A Graded Low Back Loading Program

Hi everyone, Erienne here with Peak Endurance physical therapy in Madison. Today, I am going to talk to you guys about loading and strengthening the low back. 

The stronger and the more capacity our low back has, the less likely we are to have pain when we do activities to injure it, if we lift something wrong, or if we lift too many times a day. The more capacity you have, the more resilience you have.

So the best way to functionally strengthen a back is through a deadlift. Now, a lot of people are fearful of the deadlift because they either, a) have hurt themselves on the deadlift before, or have heard horror stories of people hurting themselves with the deadlift before. So today I want to talk to you about a graded back strengthening and back loading program to get you from where you’re at now to deadlifting to build that capacity.

I call this my couch to deadlift program. You know, there’s always a couch to 5k program. So we’re going to talk about a couch to deadlift program.

Phase one:

We are going to start with a Chinese plank and a PVC hip hinge. So a Chinese plank is an isometric hold in neutral, where there’s really no chance of bothering or injuring your back. It’s a very safe way to load your back and build some really good strength.

We’re going to do a PVC hinge on top of that to start working mechanics of the hinge so that when we get to a deadlift, we feel comfortable and our form is good.

Phase 2:

After we feel good with that, our Phase two is going to be a loaded hinge. I like to do this with an RDL. So this is a top down hinge, (like you were doing with your PVC) under load.

Phase 3:

Once we feel comfortable and have built some strength in that RDL hinge, we’re going to start with a deadlift. Phase three is, picking up something from the ground, setting it back down. We do it every single day, a bunch of times a day. The stronger you can be in that deadlift, the better off and more resilient you’re going to be.

Phase 4:

Once we’re comfortable with that deadlift, that’s we can go to phase four, where we’re really starting to load up a deadlift. Going for heavy deadlifts. The heavier we can deadlift with good form, the more resilient we will be as a human. Imagine a
person with a 300 pound max deadlift. They are not going to have any issue picking up that 50 pound bag of salt or that 50 pound bag of sand, right? That’s well below their capacity. But someone with a 60 pound max deadlift is going to have a greater issue with that 50 pound bag because it’s closer to their top capacity.

So building good strength in that deadlift is going to be huge for back health and function throughout your life. The different exercises are all linked above in case you want to see what they look like. Happy lifting!