The biggest disadvantage with banded exercises is after a certain point, they stop getting you stronger. They only come so thick and stretch so far before the possibility of breaking. A breaking band might seem funny in a workout fail video, but when it’s coming at you — not so much.
But when resistance bands are programmed intelligently as deadlift accessory exercises, they can help improve your strength and technique by working on weaknesses in parts of the deadlift by providing extra assistance or resistance. The main advantage of bands is they DON’T rely on gravity for resistance, so you can perform a variety of exercises at different angles and bands can be added to a lot of free weight exercises.
Using bands for deadlift accessory exercises is a great way to add variety to your programming and give your joints a break from the constant pounding of gravity. Here we’ll explain some common deadlift weaknesses and 3 banded exercises to strengthen and improve your deadlift.
3 Common Deadlift Weaknesses
When you want to get better at deadlifting, you need to deadlift more, but sometimes this will only take you so far. Working harder is great, but so is working smarter because when you’re training with heavier weights, little tendencies creep into your deadlift that is not noticeable when lifting lighter weights. If you keep hammering away at it, then it’s only a matter of time before frustration rises and injury risk increases.
And you don’t want either of those. And even if your technique is spot on, there may still be some common “weaknesses” that can occur when pulling heavy.
- Lack of lockout strength: Lifters who lack lockout strength with heavier weights tend to extend their lower back and not their glutes. If you like to crush your spine, then by all means lockout with your lower back. I’m sure everything will be fine.
- Pulling slow off the floor: The longer you spend at the bottom of your deadlift means a loss of energy for the rest of the lift and a chance your lower back will get angry at you.
- Lack of upper back strength: This results in rounding of the spine and the bar drifting away from the body. Both are no-no’s for most lifters if you dislike lower back pain.
3 Banded Exercises To Improve Your Deadlift
If you find any of the above happening to you or you want to improve your deadlift strength and technique, the following 3 resistance band exercises will help.
