Whether you know it or not, you have done a deadlift before. Maybe you’re at home thinking of those big bald guys you can watch on the World’s Strongest Man competition. There’s always a marathon on TV during the Thanksgiving holiday where you can watch guys turn purple and deadlift giant tires on a axle of a barbell.

But even if you’ve never set foot in a gym or lifted weights in your life, you have experience with deadlifts.

There is no way to avoid deadlifting

The deadlift is one of the most fundamental movements there is. Here is the most simple definition: picking something up off the ground. You bend down, grab hold of an object, and stand up with it.

If you have ever picked up a laundry basket, you’ve performed a deadlift. Ditto if you’ve ever lifted a baby off the floor. The concept doesn’t change much if you’re pulling hundreds of pounds on a barbell off of the floor.

It is such a pervasive movement that it is smart to learn to do it well. Unfortunately, lots of people are scared to practice pulling weight off the floor (on purpose).

Deadlifts have a reputation of being dangerous. And when you watch someone really strain to pull something heavy up, it’s easy to see how people get that impression.

The truth is, there is no “never” or “always” with the body. We can usually find some way to hurt ourselves, and we can usually find ways to move better and keep ourselves safer.

I do a lot of heavy deadlifting, but the worst I ever injured my back was bending forward to tie my shoes. Something just went wrong and then I was in pain.

How to deadlift safely?

There is nothing “wrong” about the hunched over position I was in. I believe that the body is capable of a lot more movement than we think it is. That if joints weren’t supposed to move, they would have been bones instead.

But if I were to round my back, lean down, and pull on something heavy, I’d probably deserve to get hurt.

Unless I could make it look effortless and easy. These are some suggestions I apply to all of my strength training movement:

• Don’t use more tension than necessary
• Don’t get pulled drastically out of alignment with the effort of the lift. Abandon it first
• Make it look easy, and it will eventually become easy

On that last one, let me clarify: there is nothing easy about deadlifting heavy weight. But it can look easy if the lifter’s face stays calm, if there is not unnecessary tension, and if there aren’t a bunch of sticking points during the movement–moments where the movement slows drastically.

Whenever you are picking something up off the floor, sit back, reach down for it rather than bending forward to get it, and make it look easy. Whether it feels easy or not, it will become easier with practice.You’ll get better at deadlifting every day.

When a movement feels easy, in my experience you’re less likely to get injured by it.