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One of the most gruesome mistakes you can make when doing the deadlift results in a torn biceps tendon. In this video, I’m going to show you exactly what is causing the bicep tendon tears when deadlifting and more importantly how to make sure it doesn’t happen to you.
Many people think that the exercise itself is the cause. This is not the case. Thousands of reps of deadlifts are performed every day around the world and very few of them result in a torn biceps tendon. That said, when two ingredients are in place the risk of tearing a tendon become significantly more likely.
These are the use of a mixed grip and improperly directing force into the bar through the arms at the top of the lift. Let’s look at the mixed grip first. This is a prerequisite for this injury because it places one of the hands in an underhand position via supination at the forearm. The reason this grip is used is so that someone with a weaker grip can have better grasp of the bar. The underhand provides stability by preventing the rolling of the bar out of the hands as it will with a traditional overhand grip.
That said, it also immediately activates the biceps more and places tension through the upper arm that doesn’t happen through the pronated side.
Next however, is where the combination of this and more tension along with stretch becomes the perfect recipe for disaster. When you start to reach the top of the movement the exercise becomes most difficult. You have probably seen people struggle to get through the top of the move and finish their hip extension. It is at this point that the person is likely to rely on other muscles to help get there. This is when the biceps is mistakenly relied on to try and curl the bar to the top. Big mistake.
Often times, the amount of weight being handled on the deadlift is far surpassing any weight that can be reasonably or safely curled by the biceps. Combine this with the additional stretch that gets placed on the biceps tendon at this very moment (as the arm goes from a more flexed shoulder position to a more extended shoulder position – thereby placing more stretch on the biceps in the process) and you quickly see why tears occur in the distal attachment most frequently at this point.
The best way to avoid this happening to you is to actively contract the triceps throughout every rep of the deadlift. Here is what that will accomplish. First, the contraction of the triceps around the elbow will reciprocally inhibit the action of the biceps and not allow it to contribute at the moment you do not want it to. You have essentially quieted the biceps and prevented it from administering tension into the bar.
The second benefit is that through activation of the triceps you are creating stability of the scapula due to the long head attachment of the muscle. This combined with the conscious activation of the lower traps, rhomboids and lats will help to stabilize the shoulder blade and provide more power through the lift by removing slack from the kinetic chain. It is simple to do and is something you can easily be aware of if you slip and forget to do so.
These and other advanced training tips is what training like an athlete is all about. If you are looking for a complete training program that shows you the fastest way to get gains, head to and look for the ATHLEAN-X Training Systems. Overlook nothing in your training and see how much more quickly you can take your physique to the next level of development.
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27 comments
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Pronated… Oky!
video is so glitchy wtf
Now I'm scared
I salute you. You are so smart
deadlift is the new bench press… "I deadlift xxxx lbs"
Can you tear your biceps from curling? Kinda scared because I would curl until failure.. idk if that would increase my chances of tearing anything. Some sets of curling, I would also do freeze reps around the last couple reps. I’d freeze and squeeze.. anyone can help me find answers? Thanks
Holy crap I love this explanation. Thank you!
im so afraid of this, i never use hybrid grip and mentally I remember my arms are just hooks i attach to the bar with
If we do bicep curls under heavy loads is there any chance of bicep tear?
I hv done the same mistake yesterday and torned my biceps and had no idea what mistake i did. today YouTube recommended me this video
Thanks, great video!
Should i engage the tricep with a normal deadlift
Jeff, if someone trains a 4 day split with shoulders and arms day 3, and dead lifts day 4 is there a risk of the bicep fatigue from the arm training the day before becoming a bicep tear during the following day dead lift training? I want to move my training up from 3 day split to 4 day to maximise my squat and dead lift but concerned training deadlifts with fatigued biceps will greatly increase risk of bicep tears
I lifted for almost all my life, I had decent drug free strength and size, I am in my mid 50s never pulled a bi cep, definitely wrenched the ole back a few good times , never hamstrings , pretty much the back only .. generally, all these major injuries are from poor form……. under development in one area and over development of another area.. other major factors are your body type , these factors can all cause big injuries … another thing stop over pulling and so many other facts are involved. Slow down to go Fast
Avoid deadlifts
Do you fully contract triceps or partially i.e. 50%?
When i contract 100% I get elbow discomfort but at 40-60% I feel good but I don't want to risk tearing a bicep tendon.
Jeff is really a pro in this
I always tell people it's not the mixed grip it's that you tried to curl the weight .
I had a good deadlifting workout today, but I used a true grip on the bar, rather than hooking it, and just felt a tweak in my bicep. Lesson learned.
Basically don’t flex your bicep, treat that arm like a hook and you’ll be fine
Killing it in all black look
This is a great video.
Jeff, straps are not band aids. You still have to grip, you still develop your grip, you simply have additional help for when your grip does begin to fail, so that the rest of your body is not bottlenecked.
Or you can just be a true gym chad and use hook grip like a bawss
Meh use straps
Only time I ever pulled a bicep was coming out of a rack doing shrugs with straps on when I usually do heavy shrugs with chalk and a mixed grip … I'm not the strongest but I'm going to guess having pulled 650 on the deadlift and 495 in the straight leg deadlift I'm stronger than many. Here who will say it's going to blow up a bicep . One thing is sure no one who has any reasonable strength can pull enough weight with double overhead grip to challenge the actual target muscles during heavy pulling and hook grip is garbage .