Occasionally, we have clients who are apprehensive to pull on a heavy deadlift because they’re worried about their lower backs. They’ll raise their concerns and ask things like, “I feel it a lot in my lower back when I do this. Is it ok?” or “Can we go lighter? I don’t want to hurt myself” or “Is there a way to deadlift without feeling it in my lower back?”

If a lifter is not comfortable or hesitant about a lift that they’re about to do, they’ll subconsciously hold back from pushing hard and not give it their all to pull the bar off the floor. In this situation, their nervousness to pull hard enough on the barbell to lift it off the floor might be tied to how their back feels at a certain weight threshold, or even just to numbers on the bar. 

For example, they might have been fine deadlifting 97.5kg last week, but they get nervous when they’re programmed to pull 100kg this week. In their minds, 100kg feels like a milestone to the next level of weights and seems significantly heavier even though it’s only 2.5kg more.

We see this happen to lifters from time to time and their concerns often come from a history of back pain or a higher sensitivity to sensations in their body.

What you’re feeling in your lower back

What you’re most likely feeling are your spinal erectors contracting hard isometrically to extend your back and maintain a neutral spine as you pull the heavy bar off the floor. The spinal erectors, or erector spinae, are a group of muscles that run parallel on both sides of the vertebral column, spanning the entire length of the back from the base of the skull to the pelvis.

These postural muscles function quite invisibly in daily life. The only time someone is aware of these muscles is when the person is either concentrically contracting them to extend/overextend their backs or isometrically contracting them to prevent a force from flexing their back.

So, when you’re learning how to deadlift, or when you’re deadlifting heavy, it’s possible to mistake the normal feeling of the spine erectors contracting hard as “back pain”. It can feel like something’s wrong, but it’s doing what it’s supposed to do and totally normal. 

What you’re feeling is the spinal erectors working hard to first extend your back when you set up for your deadlift and then fighting hard to maintain a neutral spine while the loaded barbell is pulling downward and trying to flex your back. Feeling those muscles contract isn’t a bad thing or a sign that you’re going to hurt yourself.

Imagine you’re doing bicep curls. As the set progresses, your biceps starts to get fatigued and the effort to complete each subsequent rep increases. You’ll start to feel the “tight” or “pumped”  sensation in your biceps – that’s what’s happening to your spine erectors when you deadlift.

Unless you regularly do manual work or are physically active, the average person is going to be fairly sedentary and will not have the experience of contracting their spine erectors hard and how it feels. The only time they feel something in their lower back is when it hurts, hence the negative correlation in their heads.

Actually, If you have weak spinal erectors, lifting can help with existing back pain. We’ve had many clients whose back pain disappeared after they started training – the cure for a weak back is a strong back.   

Can you avoid “feeling it” in your back when deadlifting?

Is it possible to deadlift without feeling your lower back working? The short answer is no. Your back is an integral part of the kinetic chain during the deadlift, and it cannot be excluded from the movement. And even if you could, why would you? A strong back is better than a weak back, and the only way to get it stronger is to expose it to a training stress. 

To avoid feeling this sensation, lifters try either one of two ways. The first is to keep their torso more vertical, thinking that it’ll reduce the load on their back. But here’s the thing: when you set up to deadlift with a vertical back, your hips will have to be much lower than they should be, which will in turn cause your shins to push the bar forward. The bar is now anterior of your midfoot, which introduces an unnecessary and inefficient moment arm that you need to produce more force to overcome.

When the bar gets heavy enough, setting up with a low-hip, vertical-back position will cause your hips to inevitably rise into a more horizontal position as you start to pull. The bar will also roll back over your midfoot (the correct pulling position) before it comes off the floor. Now you’re back to square one.

For the mechanics of this, check out our detailed video about your hips on the deadlift. If you keep insisting on starting your pull with a vertical back (and too low hips), the inefficiency might cause you to miss the rep.

As an aside, there are other ways to optimise your deadlift efficiency: maintain the proper setup by pausing before you pull, getting a secure grip, and easing the bar off the floor. 

Let’s just keep it light

The second way lifters avoid “feeling it” in their lower back is by keeping the weight light. The problem with that is twofold. Not only does it fail to address the feeling of discomfort in your back, but it also doesn’t help you get any stronger.

If you kept the weight constant, the most obvious thing that comes to mind to have some form of progression is by doing more reps, right? Either that, or by slowing down the time it takes to complete each rep. In both cases, you’re increasing the time under tension.

Let’s revisit the bicep curl example. Load a weight that you can only lift for 5 reps. Do the set, then notice how your biceps feel. Now, load a lighter weight you can only lift for 10 reps. After that set, your biceps feels even more “pumped” than the 5 rep set, right? 

Not only does lifting lighter weights not get you stronger, higher reps will make the muscles more “pumped” as compared to lower reps with heavier weights, which is counter to what you’re trying to achieve.

What’s normal and what’s not?

Now, of course, not every sensation that you feel in your back is ok. I’m not telling you to ignore the pain and carry on when something isn’t right. It’s important to recognise when something is off. 

Giving a set guideline of what’s ok and what isn’t is not feasible. It’s not possible to list out every single scenario as there are a number of variables involved that need to be known before coming to a conclusion. The last thing I want is for you to latch on to a specific guideline, overthink it and nocebo yourself into thinking that you’re injured or hurting your back when it’s totally fine.

Generally, don’t worry if your back feels “pumped” or “tight” in both sides of your spine erectors. But if you have pain that occurs only on one side of your back, or numbness and tingling that radiates down only one leg, pay attention to it. In the unlikely event that you lose bowel or bladder control, seek medical help immediately.  

On the off chance that you encounter a back tweak, there are ways to work around and through it, via a rehab plan.  

For women, you might feel lower back soreness when lifting during menstruation, so know your baseline.

There’s no getting around how your lower back feels when you deadlift. The only advice that we have is accepting that the back is an integral part of the deadlift and the feeling you’re experiencing doesn’t mean you’re causing injury to your lower back.