Why Dead Lift?

With the upcoming Dead Lift Challenge less then 2 months away (29 October 2011) it is fitting that we introduce you to why the dead lift is such a great exercise. The Dead Lift Challenge will give everyone a great opportunity to monitor strength improvements year to year while enjoying a social fitness event. By introducing the Dead Lift Challenge into our event calendar we will be able to monitor the strength of all muscle groups each year: Bench Press Challenge working the chest and shoulders and the new Dead Lift Challenge working the back and legs.

The dead lift is considered to be one of the best exercises for building all over body strength. In a lot of people's opinion it is the 'king of all lifts' and it serves a very obvious functional skill transfer element to daily tasks and sporting movements (this about how often do you bend down to pick something up - this is essentially a dead lift). The dead lift movement recruits the muscles of the back (upper and lower), abs, legs (front and back), glutes, arms and shoulders while developing core strength and stability and grip strength.

The demand of working multiple large muscle groups through a full range of motion is exhausting which makes it a great exercise for weight control due to the energy demand and metabolic benefit. This makes the dead lift a great exercise for weight loss, fitness, strength and power training programs.

Unfortunately the dead lift has developed a bit of a bad name for itself amongst uneducated 'gym go-ers' due to injuries caused by poor technique. This is no reason to avoid it all together or to be afraid of learning it, if the dead lift is performed correctly the injury risk is as low as for any other exercise but with so many benefits.

We hope to see as many people involved as possible as we launch the Dead Lift Challenge into our event calendar. For more information see our previous Dead Lift Challenge details post by clicking here: http://drivefitness.blogspot.com/2011/09/drive-fitness-dead-lift-challenge-29.html.