Low back pain with deadlifts

Piggy backing off of last weeks post, I am going to highlight something that I have been finding quite frequently with my clients.

What I’m hearing is that a fair amount of my clientele has one-sided low back pain when deadlifting. What I’m often finding in their standardized movement screen is that 1 shoulder is limited in ROM and typically it is on the same side as the low back pain.

Let me first explain to you what the Latissimus Dorsi muscle is, where it’s located, and what it does.

The Latissimus Dorsi is the largest muscle in the upper body. It helps the arm to extend, adduct and internally rotate the arm. It’s attaches to the upper arm, the lateral scapula, and along the spine all the way down to the sacrum - talk about a big muscle. (see below)

Now, we spoke last week about the SI joint and how it is located on the lower back near the ‘back dimples’. You can see in the image below that the Latissimus Dorsi is a muscle that directly relates the shoulder to the low back and specifically SI joint.

Let’s get back to my point. What I’m often seeing in deadlifts, is a ‘leak’ of energy in their upper back during the descent of the deadlift. On the way down, I’m seeing a rounding of the upper back, a lack of stiffness, and not much engagement out of the upper body. Imagine that this big ole’ Lat muscle is not being engaged during a heavy deadlift… this will take the load that SHOULD be dispersed all the way through the body, and place more stress on the low back.

A simple cue I have been working on is to keep the Latissimus (and medial scapular muscles such as rhomboids) engaged during the entire lift. This cue has immediately helped them reduce the strain on their low back during deadlifts.

Pain during deadlifts? Record yourself from the side and try to see if you do this common compensation! If so, do some Latissimus Dorsi work and try again on your deadlift, see if that helps!