At the top of the deadlift (i.e., when you have picked up the barbell), are you supposed to roll your shoulders back?

Question

At the top of the deadlift (i.e., when you have picked up the barbell), are you supposed to roll your shoulders back? Or are the shoulders supposed to remain the way they were when you grabbed the bar at the bottom position?

In this video — In Depth on the Deadlift with Mark Rippetoe (Starting Strength) — Mark corrects the performer's ending position in the fifth step by telling her to lift her chest, and then he pulls back her shoulders (click the link above).

I am a beginner. I am wondering if that is the right thing to do. I am asking this because I have heard that we are supposed to stay tight and not lose tension anywhere in the body when performing the deadlift and the squat. When I tried to roll back my shoulders as instructed by Mark, I suddenly felt all the weight of the barbell (+ the weights) fall directly on my upper back. This weight shift was so drastic and uncomfortable that I stopped rolling my shoulders back like he said. I don't have a problem with sticking my chest out (or driving my hips into the bar). But that shoulder roll was so bad it felt like the weights were bending me backwards, if that even makes sense. No, I wasn't using heavy weights; I don't have any problem with how much weight I am lifting. Everything was fine and tight and firm, until the moment I rolled my shoulders back like the performer.

From the video, you can see here and here that the performer rolls her shoulders back and she seems a bit uncomfortable doing that. I mean the rolling of the shoulders does not look like a fluid motion. When we grab the bar at the bottom position, our shoulders are internally rotated (i.e., our palms face our shins). It seems to me that Mark is asking us to rotate back our shoulders (and that would naturally cause our palms to face inwards touching the side of our legs). But since we are holding on to the barbell, our palms still face backwards. And for some reason that seems to be one of the source of the discomfort. The other being that rolling the shoulders may lead to losing some tension or tightness, which is what happened to me I guess.

I know Mark's Starting Strength is like a bible; this answer here has it listed at the top for a beginner's guide to the deadlift. I want to know if anyone else here has faced the same problem, i.e., rolling back the shoulders puts a lot of sudden pressure on the upper back. I want to know if one can avoid rolling the shoulders and perform the lift.

I am following some of Alan Thrall's videos on deadlifts and squats. He too follows the 5 steps of Starting Strength. But unlike Mark and the performer, Alan does not readjust his shoulders at the top of the deadlift. He simply sticks his chest out, and does not roll back his shoulders.

So which is correct? Should we roll the shoulders or not?

Edit:

In this video, Quick Deadlift Tip : Shoulder Position / Tight Lats, Alan Thrall explains exactly what I am referring to. It's a very short video; please have a look. Here is what he says:

Today I want to talk about a mistake that I often see when people are setting up for the deadlift. When setting up for the deadlift, the correct shoulder position is down, not shrugged up, and not back. While standing tall with your arms at your side, drive your fingertips down towards the ground. This is where gravity wants your shoulder to be. Grab a pair of heavy dumbbells and stand up tall. Pay attention to where your shoulder-blades want to settle — down — not shrugged up and not pulled back. Setting your shoulder blades down before pulling the weight off of the floor will tighten and engage your lats. Correct shoulder position can be achieved by pulling the slack out of the barbell and pulling the slack out of your setup. ... Failing to engage your lats during the deadlift might be causing your back to round over as you pull. Rolling the shoulders at the top of the deadlift to try and emphasize lockout is an indicator that someone is not setting their shoulders before they pull. This shoulder roll is unnecessary and counterproductive. Set your shoulders in the correct position at the bottom and you will automatically be in the correct position once you get to the top."

Here is a picture from How to Deadlift with Proper Form: The Definitive Guide

My lockout position looks like the fourth position. But Mark is saying to have the shoulders farther back like in the second. Doing that after the lockout hurts a bit.

The blog says:

Shrugging or rolling your shoulders at the top is unnecessary. Your traps already work hard to keep your shoulders in position when you Deadlift. There’s no need to add a contraction at the top, and doing it anyway is bad for your shoulders. Let your shoulders hang at the top.

Read more https://stronglifts.com/deadlift/

Answer 1

Yes, it's the right thing to do. Your shoulders should be retracted at the end of a deadlift rep.

Those videos have the answer. The deadlift is not finished until you achieve full (but not over-) extension, and that includes thoracic extension. "You can't cheat the [deadlift] by leaving your shoulders forward" is exactly correct.

I don't agree that the person demonstrating the deadlift is uncomfortable finishing the thoracic extension part of the deadlift.

If this feels uncomfortable for you, I wonder whether your set-up is correct (i.e. perhaps you are allowing your upper back to round), I suspect your upper back could be weak, and I worry that you – like many many modern people with sedentary jobs – have some trouble with kyphosis. That is, I worry that your shoulders are excessively forward in your everyday posture. Or, maybe you are over-exaggerating the movement into global spinal hyper-extension. These are all possibilities to check out.

Answer 2

The 2019 IPF Technical Rules Book includes these items which will lead to your deadlift being disqualified in a competition (see Page 9 of this PDF):

• "Failure to lock the knees straight at the completion of the lift."
• "Failure to stand erect with the shoulders back."

You describe a severe amount of agony in ending the deadlift with your shoulders back. That is okay. It just means that you have some weaknesses in certain muscles, especially at the top of the deadlift.

I was a competitive powerlifter for years, and deadlift was my best (and favorite) lift. In 2011, I deadlifted 2.5kg more than the national record for my age and weight category in Canada and the UK, so I have deadlifted a lot in my life, and more weight than most people ever do.

The "lockout" was never a major problem for me on the deadlift (though everyone has their own share of problems: mine for a long time was simply being able to get the bar high enough off the ground when the weight got extremely heavy, and not being able to keep my back from rounding a lot .. once I managed to get the bar high enough off the ground, it was usually not too hard to "finish" and "lockout").

Why did I never have a problem with finishing with my shoulders back? We will probably never know the exact reason, but I loved to do "shrugs" with heavy weights for years before I started deadlifting. Often the first thing I did when I walked in the gym, was a set of shrugs with the heaviest dumbbells I could hold, and I would try to increase the weight every week or so. This is a quick exercise, it's easy, it uses barely any energy and doesn't make you tired, and it lets you look strong because you can likely use dumbbells much heavier than what most people ever dream of touching for other exercises (I was a skinny and whimpy looking guy, so this exercise helped me feel good about myself, which I'm not ashamed to say). I progressed faster through the weight sizes on this exercise, than on any other exercise I can remember, until I started using the heaviest dumbbells in the gym (where it actually starts to become quite a grip-strengthening exercise). Here's the beginning and ending positions for the exercise:

I didn't notice, but I got comments from friends saying that I had "huge traps" (referring to the "trapezius muscle"), which was quite nice to hear since I was the skinniest guy in my class for far too long. Shrugs are for most people the first exercise for which they reach the highest dumbbell weight in their gym, at which point it's time to switch to the bar (where we can put more weight):

These pictures do not depict the exact movement that you need to strengthen at the top of your deadlift, but:

• This exercise will strengthen your trapezius muscle, which will help you with your problem,
• Some people when they do shrugs, don't just move their shoulders up but move them up and back, which is exactly what will help you to be able to keep your shoulders back at the top of a deadlift,
• I credit my love for this exercise during my early years in the gym, for the fact that I never had major problems "locking out" at the top of my deadlift in the way that you describe.

Concluding remarks:

Dave's answer, C. Lang's comment, and the IPF rules confirm what all the videos in your question say: it is not improper to end your deadlift with your shoulders back.

Your description of what it feels like for you to do this, even when you say "I wasn't using heavy weights; I don't have any problem with how much weight I am lifting" tell us that you just have a weakness in certain muscles (quite possible your traps and shoulders) which I think can be improved by doing the right exercises (if you already regularly do barbbell "shrugs" with weight much heavier than what you're deadlifting, which is possible if you start the bar at an elevated position by using the side bars of a squat rack, then perhaps your problem is elsewhere and you may which to do a shoulder exercise such as the Arnold Press).

Finally: It is not unusual for you to have "no problem" deadlifting the weight, but have serious problems locking out, or with some portion of the lift. This happens all the time in many different lifts, when for example someone is "leg dominant" or "arm dominant" or has some muscle group that is stronger (relatively) than another. Your job now is to get your shoulders and traps strengthened so that they are not longer stopping you from deadlifting the way you want. This often (perhaps unfortunately) means dropping your deadlift weight and increasing it only once you're able to do it exactly the way you want: but if you do this and you increase the weight patiently, you are less likely to get injured and more likely to be able to lift more in the long run. Feel free to comment 6 months from now, as I'd be keen to see how you progress!