Deadlift Form: How to Set Up and Stop Rounding Your Lower Back
3 min read
The deadlift is one of the best lifts you can do — and one of the easiest to do sloppily. Most problems trace back to the setup and the brace. Get those two right and a neutral-back pull becomes your default.
Dial in the setup
- Stand with the bar over your mid-foot, feet about hip-width apart. The bar should almost touch your shins.
- Hinge down and grip the bar just outside your legs.
- Bend your knees until your shins touch the bar, then lift your chest until your back is flat — not rounded, not over-arched.
- Shoulders just in front of the bar, arms straight.
Brace before you pull
Take a big breath into your belly and brace as if you're about to be pushed. Pull the slack out of the bar — you'll hear it click against the plates — so there's tension before it leaves the floor.
Squeeze your lats, as if protecting your armpits, to keep the bar close and your upper back tight.
Why the lower back rounds
- A rushed setup — no brace, or jerking the bar off the floor.
- Mobility — tight hips or hamstrings make a flat-back start position hard to reach.
- Load — a weight beyond what you can pull while holding position.
Is rounding dangerous? Less than its reputation suggests. A systematic review found no clear link between how much the lower back bends while lifting and back pain, although the studies behind it were low quality (Saraceni 2020 (opens in a new tab)). The practical problem is control: a back that rounds more as the bar gets heavier is harder to brace, harder to repeat and harder to load progressively. A little upper-back rounding is common in experienced pullers; a lower back that rounds further with every added plate is the thing to clean up.
Cues and drills
- Cues: “push the floor away”, “proud chest”, and a neutral neck with your eyes on the floor a few metres ahead.
- Romanian deadlifts to groove the hinge.
- Tempo pulls with a three-second lowering, and paused deadlifts just off the floor.
- Drop the load 10–20% to rebuild a clean pattern, then add weight back gradually.
Check it on video
Film from the side at hip height with the whole bar in frame — the angle FormLens asks for, because the hinge happens side-on (how to film your lifts).
FormLens tracks hip extension and torso angle through every filmed rep and checks you finish at full lockout — a hip angle of 165° or more at the top. It doesn't auto-flag lower-back rounding yet: the skeleton overlay shows the line from your shoulders to your hips, not the curve of your spine, so replay the clip and watch your lower back yourself from setup to lockout. Lockout and rep-to-rep consistency feed your form score.
How FormLens measures this
Deadlift · Filmed side-on, phone at hip height
- Lockout
- How far your hips open at the top of each rep. 165° or more counts as full lockout; short reps are flagged.
- Torso angle
- Your torso angle through the pull, which the AI coach reads.
- Consistency and tempo
- How closely your reps match each other, and how steady your rhythm is, on multi-rep sets.
Checking back rounding: replay the clip and watch your lower back from setup to lockout — the skeleton shows the line from shoulders to hips, not the curve of your spine.
Not auto-flagged yet: lower-back rounding. A side-on camera can't see both legs, so there's no left/right reading. Every measurement is an estimate from a single camera, so setup matters — see the camera setup.
Sources
- Saraceni N, Kent P, Ng L, et al. To flex or not to flex? Is there a relationship between lumbar spine flexion during lifting and low back pain? A systematic review with meta-analysis. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2020;50(3):121–130. View study (opens in a new tab)
Educational only — not medical advice. FormLens is a training aid, not a medical device; measurements are estimates from a single camera. If something hurts, see a physio or doctor. Terms of Use
First published · Last updated · By FormLens