Lower Back Rounding on Deadlifts: Why It Happens and How to Fix It

Your lumbar spine flexes as the bar breaks the floor, or you start neutral and lose position partway up.

Why it happens

How to fix it

Set your hips higher than feels natural

A deadlift is a hinge, not a squat. Shoulders slightly ahead of the bar, hips above knees.

Take the slack out before you pull

Pull up on the bar until you hear it click against the plates, then pull. Never yank from a dead stop.

Cue "protect your armpits" or "squeeze oranges in your armpits"

This engages the lats and keeps the bar tight to your legs, where the leverage is best.

Add Romanian deadlifts and barbell rows

Position strength is a real trainable quality, not just a technique issue.

Worth knowing: Any rounding paired with pain, numbness, or tingling down a leg means stop and get assessed. That is not a cueing problem.

Not sure if you are actually doing this?

The hardest part of fixing a form fault is that you cannot see yourself lift. Upload a video of your deadlift and CleanerReps returns specific written corrections against a checklist built for that exact lift, usually in a couple of minutes.

Check your deadlift form

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