Just pick it up!!

Kind of silly really, when someone asks what the ultimate test of strength is, what do you think would be the response?  More often than not you will hear it's the back squat or the bench press.  Ask me the same question and I'm going to tell you it's picking something off the ground. 

What?  Picking something off the ground?  You mean like a bag of dog food?  YEAH!!!!  Just like a bag of dog food.  In case you haven't caught on yet, I'm talking about the damn DEADLIFT.

The deadlift is the ultimate test of pure strength.  I say pure strength because people will argue that the clean is the ultimate lift, and I agree.  However the clean also takes speed, agility and coordination.  The deadlift on the other hand is like I said before, just picking something up off the ground.

I read an article in the CrossFit journal about the deadlift.  There was a conversation between coach Glassman (co-founder of CrossFit) and a medical doctor.  The doctor didn't want one of his elderly patients doing deadlifts.  Coach Glassman spoke with the doctor and basically asked him, "would you let your patient walk to the corner store and buy cat food?" the doctor said "yes".  Coach Glassman then asked, "if she happend to drop the bag on the ground when trying to open her front door, would you say that it is safe for her to pick it up off the ground?" again the doctor replied, "yes of course".  Coach Glassman then told the doctor that the only difference between the Dr. and himself is that he wants to show the elderly lady how to pick that bag of cat food up correctly.

A recent Men's Health article said that you as an American adult will have an 80% chance of suffering from some sort of back pain.  The crazy thing is that back pain is 100% avoidable.  Most Americans with back pain suffer from stress.  That's right, bills and the boss on your ass all the time is the most common cause of back pain.  Second leading cause is people that try to pick things up incorrectly.  Funny how stress can be relieved by exercising to release the built up cortisol and epinephrine that the body releases when stressed.  What is also funny (or not so funny) is that the majority of Americans that hurt their back picking things up.....can you guess where I'm going with this?  That's right, they don't exercise, or if they do, they don't know how to do it correctly.  No one ever showed them how to do a proper deadlift.  Sounds ridiculous right?  No one showed these people how to pick something up. 

So get out there, get to a gym or better yet, find a CrossFit affiliate in your area and for god's sake, learn how to just pick it up!!!

That's me learning how to pick up a 330lb bag of dog food.