Look, I get it. It feels good to lift heavy weights, brag about your maxes, and post videos on Instagram of you hitting new PRs. You feel like a beast…the king of the gym…and nothing can stop you. And what’s the number one exercise that people do to carry this out?

Deadlifts.

Oh, my bad…should I say…King Deadlift? Everywhere you go, you hear nothing but good things about Mr. King Deadlift.

• “It’s a major muscle builder!”
• “It’s an amazing full-body exercise!”
• “It will even fix your ugly face & end world hunger!”

But honestly, if you’re training for muscle gain, deadlifts are actually OVERRATED.

Why is that the case?

Let’s take a look.

NOTE: In this article, I’ll be referring to conventional deadlifts whenever I mention deadlifts unless specified otherwise. This means powerlifting style with a straight bar, pulled straight off of the floor.

Why the Deadlift is Overrated

Poor Range of Motion

Whenever people talk about the deadlift, you usually hear something like this:

“Deadlifts hit everything! You hit your quads, core, grip, back, traps, glutes, hamstrings, SPIRIT, etc. etc. etc.”

That might sound like a good thing…but is it really so good? Riddle me this, Batman:

What is your goal?

Unless you’re a powerlifter or an athlete, the answer to that question is probably to gain muscle mass on your glutes and hamstrings so that you look better.

So while yes, deadlifts DO hit many different muscle groups, let’s first recognize that most of them are not really why we do deadlifts in the first place. We don’t care about the little add-ons. This isn’t buying a new car and adding more to a juicy deal.

But just to entertain that idea, let’s look at the involvement of a few other major muscle groups during the deadlift that are supposed benefits of the exercise:

• Quads: Small range of motion
• Traps: Isometric contraction (no range of motion)
• Midback: Isometric contraction (no range of motion)
• Lats: Small range of motion

So they either get little to no ROM.

Why’s that a big deal?

Because larger ranges of motion are associated with greater gains in muscle size than shorter ranges of motion – even when a shorter ROM lets you lift more weight (1).

What’s more, most of these muscle groups are ALREADY getting hit very well through a FULL range of motion with the rest of your workout routine that includes better exercises for those muscle groups such as squats, rows, pulldowns, and shrugs. 

Lack of Eccentric Portion

Not only do deadlifts not work most of the muscles it claims to hit through a full range of motion, they also don’t include a good eccentric portion (the lengthening contraction, like the descent of the bar on a bench press or squat). This is a big deal.

Why?

In a 2017 meta analysis by Schoenfeld et al, it was found that eccentric contractions were just as effective – and even SUPERIOR in some cases – than concentric contractions (the shortening contraction, such as getting the weight up on a deadlift) (2).

In fact, eccentric and concentric contractions may contribute to growth in different ways and produce differing hypertrophy (growth) regionally within the muscle to give you better uniform muscle growth (3).

All else held equal, dynamic contractions (concentric + eccentric) are better than either alone.

That being said, because deadlifts do not contain a good eccentric, you’re probably missing out on your best gains and alternative exercises should be considered for maximum muscle growth.

Lots of Overlap

Finally, we come to overlap.

Ask any coach out there worth a damn what the hardest exercise to program is and you’ll hear the same thing:

The deadlift.

There’s a ton of overlap with the muscles worked in a deadlift and your other exercises, but do you really need it when the rest of your routine is already on point?

Like I said in the previous point, the deadlift works a lot of muscles through partial ROMs that are already getting hit even better from the rest of your training.

This adds a lot of overlap into the workout program and creates unnecessary fatigue in these muscles that can stop you from training them most effectively for their own regular workouts.

So…

1. You don’t get a maximal stimulus for muscle growth from deadlifts and
2. Deadlifts pre-fatigue you from getting a maximal stimulus from better exercises.

Doesn’t sound ideal by a long shot. Can you start to see now why deadlifts are overrated for muscle growth?

Now let’s take a look at some better alternatives to the deadlift if your goal is to maximize muscle growth.

Alternatives to the Deadlift

Now what alternative do we have to the deadlift to maximize muscle growth? So far, we’ve established:

1. We want to involve a full ROM for the targeted muscles
2. We want to include an eccentric portion
3. We need to involve less overlap in the exercise

Let’s look at what we can do.

The Romanian Deadlift

So you’re not ready to drop the deadlift entirely. No worries. You don’t have to. Enter Romanian deadlifts.

Romanian deadlifts stimulate your glutes and hams better, include a nice eccentric portion, tax your supporting muscle groups less due to the lighter weights and slight technique shift, and remove the quads from the exercise (they weren’t getting much love anyways).

Alongside glute ham raises, Romanian Deadlifts see the highest hamstring activity from a pool of posterior chain exercises (4) and are a much better option for your training routine.

The haters will say “well they’re still deadlifts!”, but don’t let the name fool you. There is no “dead” lift here, and the subtle difference in how this exercise is done makes a big difference and is why Romanian Deadlifts are usually my #1 choice for an exercise to build your glutes and hamstrings.

Good Morning

If the Romanian Deadlift is still introducing too much fatigue into the program, then another alternative is none other than the Good Morning.

The Good Morning also generates high hamstring activation (5) with the added benefit that it does not involve grip strength or the various back muscles to the same degree as a Romanian Deadlift, thus allowing for more specialized focus on the intended muscles.

Leg Curls

Although they’re great exercises, Romanian Deadlifts and Good Mornings can benefit from adding leg curls to the routine.

One study found that lying leg curls resulted in differential hamstring activation than a straight leg deadlift (6). The hamstrings function as both hip extensors and knee flexors, so this makes sense, given that the leg curl is a knee flexion exercise, and the short head of the biceps femoris is a uniarticular muscle and only crosses the knee.

As bodybuilders, full muscle development is the goal, so incorporating leg curls alongside hip hinge exercises such as the Romanian deadlift or good morning is likely beneficial for maximizing muscle growth in all areas of the hamstrings.

Other Options

The options don’t stop there.

• Pull throughs also rely less on ‘extra’ muscles, remove stress from the lower back due to the way resistance is applied, and provide constant tension through the use of a low cable pulley
• Back extensions are a great option for higher rep work with minimal fatigue to other muscle groups. Hip torque varies depending on the position of the upper body relative to the hip, so the back extension differs from other movements such as the good morning which may theoretically have a benefit for hypertrophic adaptations (7).

Are Deadlifts Dead?

I know I’ve been quite hard on King Deadlift throughout this article, but I actually do think they are a viable or even necessary option for several scenarios. After all, it’s just an exercise – a tool to use for its intended purpose by a skilled physique architect.

#1 Powerlifters

Self-explanatory. It’s a requirement for the sport! Although many powerlifters don’t even deadlift regularly and progress just fine.

#2 The Minimalists

If you were stuck on a desert island and could only pick 3 exercises, then you will have permission to pack your deadlifts. Legend has it, this is how powerlifting began thousands of years ago after the survivors of Atlantis had to repopulate the Earth.

Deadlifts do work a lot of muscle mass, so on a set by set basis, you do get more bang for your buck.

That’s a great thing if you’re only able or willing to hit the gym a couple times a week for short workouts and want to make some positive changes in your physique.

But if you have high volume requirements and are looking to maximize muscle growth, heavy conventional deadlifts might be something you want to swap out.

#3 Saving children who didn’t get an iPhone for their 4th birthday from under earthquake debris

Because the world needs more kindness and less entitlement.

Reasons for Deadlift Dogma

Now that we’ve gone over all of the above, let’s finish this up by looking at why deadlifts are such a dogmatic exercise everywhere and why this article is going to piss a lot of people off.

Reason #1: “[insert fitness celebrity here] does heavy deadlifts and look at them!”

Correlation =/= causation.

Jacked people are also doing lots of other stuff (in and outside of the gym – if you get my…point…) to get that way, so you simply cannot attribute it to one variable. Furthermore, just because THEY did deadlifts to build their physique does not mean that this was the optimal or only way for them to do so.

Reason #2: “Well they worked for me!”

Anecdotes are the acceptance antidote.

While there is a shred of truth to personal results (we can never create a generalization for something so complex as improving fitness of a biological system), we are also limited by our perceptions of the world and this does not mean one exercise alone was the key (see previous point) or that it is therefore applicable to everybody.

Great decisions in building an aesthetic physique require various lines of truth-gathering, and personal experience is only one of them.

We are inherently biased towards promoting things that we have invested our time and effort on, but this is no excuse for casting a blind eye to the available evidence. I, myself, had spent years deadlifting enthusiastically and have pulled over 2.6x my bodyweight, but after more careful thought, I must go where the evidence leads.

Reason #3 They Crank Up Your Hormones

A commonly-held idea is that doing heavy, intense exercises that involve a lot of large muscle groups is better for you because it jacks up your hormones which helps you grow better. And because deadlifts are extremely intense and crank up your hormones, they must be golden.

This is what’s known as the “hormone hypothesis”.

While it sounds good on paper due to the public perception of the link between hormones and bodybuilding, this has been shown to be either completely false or produce only trivial effects unlikely to produce meaningful long term effects on muscle hypertrophy (8).

Muscle growth – the goal – is a local process that does not require large, acute systemic hormonal rises to derive benefit. The muscular gains from hormones are going to come from supraphysiological doses from exogenous sources (in layman’s terms…hopping on the juice.)

Stimulate the muscles you want to build. Feed. Rest. Repeat.

Reason #4: They build functional strength

This is the last grasp at the cliff before impending doom.

“Functional strength” is an excuse for doing stupid shit in the gym.

Just how functionally strong do you really need to be in order to be a functioning member of society in the 21st century?

A 600lb deadlift sounds great on paper, but is it really necessary to invest your valuable gym time and effort in if you simply want to look good and put on some muscle?

Reason #5: They build strength period

“Well, I just want to be strong.”

To that, I ask you once again:

What is your goal?

I’m not here to cast judgments about what got you in the gym and keeps you motivated, but if you’re serious about bodybuilding – i.e wanting to achieve an aesthetic physique – then who gives a shit how strong you are?

You could be weak as hell and it’s all good so long as you achieved the look you want.

Why?

Because you achieved your goal.

Everything must be specific to your goal, and while strength and hypertrophy are related, they are not one in the same. If you want the best results, you’ve got to train like it. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Conclusion

And that’s that. Deadlifts. Use them or don’t use them. It depends on your goals. Just don’t let people tell you they’re mandatory for muscle growth.

Pick your exercises based on your goal and let science and reason guide your training, not your ego and what the world tells you that you should do.

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References

1. McMahon GE, Morse CI, Burden A, Winwood K, Onambélé GL. Impact of range of motion during ecologically valid resistance training protocols on muscle size, subcutaneous fat, and strength. J Strength Cond Res. 2014 Jan;28(1):245-55. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e318297143a.
2. Schoenfeld BJ, Ogborn DI, Vigotsky AD, Franchi MV, Krieger JW. Hypertrophic Effects of Concentric vs. Eccentric Muscle Actions: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. J Strength Cond Res. 2017 Sep;31(9):2599-2608. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000001983.
3. Franchi MV, Atherton PJ, Reeves ND, Flück M, Williams J, Mitchell WK, Selby A, Beltran Valls RM, Narici MV. Architectural, functional and molecular responses to concentric and eccentric loading in human skeletal muscle. Acta Physiol (Oxf). 2014 Mar;210(3):642-54. doi: 10.1111/apha.12225.
4. McAllister MJ, Hammond KG, Schilling BK, Ferreria LC, Reed JP, Weiss LW. Muscle activation during various hamstring exercises. J Strength Cond Res. 2014 Jun;28(6):1573-80. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000302.
5. Vigotsky AD, Harper EN, Ryan DR, Contreras B. Effects of load on good morning kinematics and EMG activity. PeerJ. 2015 Jan 6;3:e708. doi: 10.7717/peerj.708. eCollection 2015.
6. Schoenfeld BJ, Contreras B, Tiryaki-Sonmez G, Wilson JM, Kolber MJ, Peterson MD. Regional differences in muscle activation during hamstrings exercise. J Strength Cond Res. 2015 Jan;29(1):159-64. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000598.
7. Contreras B, Cronin J, Schoenfeld BJ, Nates R, Tiryaki Sonmez, G. Are All Hip Extension Exercises Created Equal?. Strength and Conditioning Journal. 2013 35. 17-22. 10.1519/SSC.0b013e318289fffd.
8. Schoenfeld BJ. Postexercise hypertrophic adaptations: a reexamination of the hormone hypothesis and its applicability to resistance training program design. J Strength Cond Res. 2013 Jun;27(6):1720-30. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e31828ddd53.

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