IonRod
Level 5 Valued Member
The discussion over what is bad and good form is quite interesting. Where is the line between good and bad form? How much flexion is unsafe? How do we know this?
My favorite example is not Konstantinovs deadlifts, but a simple exercise that is loved by weightlifters and by many SFGs as I observed - the Jefferson Curl. Which one is more dangerous, deadlift or Jefferson? Which one causes higher injury rates? Where is that line of safety that turns a dangerous deadlift into a safe Jefferson Curl? I will make a bold statement that such line does not exist. You cannot lift as much weight with a JC as you can with a competition style DL. The mechanics of the JC are just not beneficial to lifting large weight. So we simply don't load the JC the same way we do the DL and we call that lift safe. Not because the spine is not flexed - it's even moving under flexion (gasp)! But because we trust that the lifter loads it properly and incrementally. This is why I believe that when we talk about unsafe position, we really only mean unsafe load.
The only thing that is dangerous about a flexed spine in the deadlift is if it never happened before. Then the muscles that have not gone through the usual adaptation process would suddenly experience a load they did not carry before. That creates a dangerous overload. But if this flexed position was loaded incrementally, muscle adaptations occured and it does not prevent the lifter from increasing their performance, then who are we to say it is "bad form"?
My favorite example is not Konstantinovs deadlifts, but a simple exercise that is loved by weightlifters and by many SFGs as I observed - the Jefferson Curl. Which one is more dangerous, deadlift or Jefferson? Which one causes higher injury rates? Where is that line of safety that turns a dangerous deadlift into a safe Jefferson Curl? I will make a bold statement that such line does not exist. You cannot lift as much weight with a JC as you can with a competition style DL. The mechanics of the JC are just not beneficial to lifting large weight. So we simply don't load the JC the same way we do the DL and we call that lift safe. Not because the spine is not flexed - it's even moving under flexion (gasp)! But because we trust that the lifter loads it properly and incrementally. This is why I believe that when we talk about unsafe position, we really only mean unsafe load.
The only thing that is dangerous about a flexed spine in the deadlift is if it never happened before. Then the muscles that have not gone through the usual adaptation process would suddenly experience a load they did not carry before. That creates a dangerous overload. But if this flexed position was loaded incrementally, muscle adaptations occured and it does not prevent the lifter from increasing their performance, then who are we to say it is "bad form"?