Keys to a Perfect Hinge
When you start the long journey of pursuing strength, it’s not long before you find like minded people and begin to find common ground in the gym. You begin to push each other based on previous performances in workouts and exercises. The group asks questions like, “How many reps did you get?” or perhaps “How much weight was on the bar?” When others find out that you’re lifting weights or notice that you’re putting on some muscle, a common questions that comes up for people who also train. “How much can you deadlift?”
When it comes to comparisons in the gym among the bros, or keeping the spotlight as a main event in most strength sport events like Strongman or Powerlifting, no lift takes center stage like the Deadlift. There is just something to be said about how much weight a person can lift up off the floor.
Being able to deadlift effectively has a number of benefits. There is a tremendous focus on the Posterior Chain muscles (accelerators) but like any lift, the antagonists and supporting muscles also get a good amount of attention due to the sheer force and resistance being overcome. Not to mention all three classes of levers are being used at different points of the body.
A successful deadlift (in all of its varieties) is dependent on a key movement that we all use on a daily basis. Not just in lifting and exercise, but also our day-to-day activities. The hinge is an essential and extremely common movement that enables us as humans to be mobile beings. Key muscles activate and support the body in order to allow movement to occur in a coordinated and precise way. Try walking or running with the same arm and leg raising for each step. Keep in mind that the body’s ability to counterbalance comes into play in the whole 3D space, top to bottom, front to back and side to side. So when you are lowering your torso towards the floor, if your hips do not adjust backward to account for the shift in your center of gravity, you will fall forwards. Seems like a simple concept, but performing a proper and effective hinge involves a number of steps throughout the body.
Below you will find important keys that will improve your hinge and thus improve your deadlift. The keys that we will talk about here can be understood and used across a number of disciplines, activities and sports as well as alongside effective coaching. So grab a pen and some paper, take some notes and get ready to learn some tips to improve your performance with the hinge.
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1: Don’t forget about the Center of Gravity(CoG): As our bodies move in a 3D space, CoG changes and moves and when not compensated appropriately through either an external load or internal muscle contractions, we lose balance. In order to stay upright we want our CoG to stay above the middle of our foot and as centered as possible according to the shape our body makes (tucked in a ball vs standing tall) relative to the distribution of our weight (more mass in the legs vs the torso). When you sit in the lower position of a hinge, you can get a feel for where you CoG is by rocking back and forth, moving your torso forward and backward, dropping and raising your hips, etc. The more comfortable you are with how this feels, the easier you can adjust to keep your CoG in a balanced position. This will keep your body’s position optimal, minimizing the movement arms of the levers in the body, which reduces the required force to overcome the load being lifted.
2: How do your muscles move your body: You will often hear that compound lifts essentially “engage the whole body”. While this is true to a degree, it is important to understand the key players activated in a proper hinge. The quadriceps extends the knee. The glutes extends the hips. The adductor magnus is stabilizing the hip and helping the final degrees to standing up. Hamstrings are pulling double duty working alongside the glutes and also supporting the knee joint by controlling the speed of extension (eccentrically contracting). Gastrocnemius stabilizes the ankles and acts as an antagonist to knee extension. The muscles through the back (Erectors, abdominals, lats, traps) all help keep the back straight, maintain CoG in a balanced position and assist in hip extension. The things to remember about all of this is that We have a series of prime mover, stabilizers, antagonists, and synergists. No one muscle is performing a single function to perform a hinge. Rather they are working through a continuum of interconnected duties that allow the body to move in a certain way. When we see issues with “form” we are often looking at some kind of deficit related to muscle imbalance. But knowing the key players in the hinge can help you understand what physical position you need to be in to reduce pain, and improve movement patterns. You may need to keep your stance a little more narrow, or you may need to slightly point your feet outward. It can be helpful to try slight position changes to find where you feel the most comfortable and can execute full range of motion without pain or discomfort.
3: Flexibility and Stability: We are often quick to associate difficulty in movement with “tight” or “stiff” muscles. This overly common attribution also elicits an all too common treatment of stretching or elongating the muscles in an effort to promote flexibility and elasticity. It is good to work on flexibility and work on a muscle’s ability to elongate, however, it is not always the necessary work that needs to be done to improve the performance or comfortability of the movement. Strengthening a muscle can have just as much effect on comfort and efficiency and in many cases, a weak muscle is more a culprit than a tight one. Different muscles during the hinge are going to be acting differently. At the bottom of the hinge, the hamstrings need to be flexible and elongate, but at the top, they need to contract forcefully and assist the glute in extending the hips. The hip extensors as well act oppositely, they need to go from a contracted compact state to an elongated state. Hence, addressing solely flexibility of a muscle will be missing 50% of the equation through the duration of the hinge. It is important to realize that the body is made to be a master of both flexibility and stability, both are necessary to provide both a foundation and a trampoline to provide the necessary aid to the movement in the extremities.
The most effective way to improve the use and memory of these keys is to practice, practice, and practice. This will entail using different exercises to implement the different aspects of the movement, extending the hips, activating the glutes, balancing with the hips back and shins vertical, etc. Exercises to isolate these movements can be done in the form of accessories added as part of a dynamic warm up going into a deadlift routine, and also a part of a cool-down protocol or even as a stand alone session. It will require a combination of using resistance, calisthenics, and stretching in order to engage the muscles in the proper way allowing the various keys to an effective hinge to become habit in the movement pattern.
There are also a number of cues while practicing hinges and isolated exercises that can also help prepare the body to execute proper movement.
It is too easy to get complacent. The most important key to performing a perfect hinge is being consistent and intentional with each and every one.