Deadlift at Planet Fitness.

Deadlifts are one of the best compound exercises like burpees, designed to strengthen several groups of muscles simultaneously. It, not only strengthens, but greatly improves balance, coordination, posture, bone density, and cardiovascular health among numerous other benefits.

Gym enthusiasts often say that Planet Fitness banned deadlifts and we have seen notice boards that unequivocally the information as well. How true is this ban and for what reason or can you deadlift at Planet Fitness? In this article, we’ll be taking a look at these and much more.

Can you deadlift at Planet Fitness?

With all the hullabaloo making the rounds about the ban of deadlifts at Planet Fitness, the outfit has responded in a tweet stating unambiguously that deadlifts are by no means banned. (source)

It went on to state that there are no banned exercises at Planet Fitness and people should feel free to deadlift with the Smith machine and any other weights they find at their gyms. In order words, you cannot only deadlift at Planet Fitness but there are free weights for deadlifting too even if a free barbell isn’t on the list.

It’s often argued that the Smith machine deadlift is not like the conventional one but in truth, there are many variations of deadlifts that accomplish great results in your bodybuilding journey. What people regard as conventional is just one of those variations that only works just as much as the others.

Above all, deadlifts with the Smith machine can not only accomplish your bodybuilding goal but be far safer and less injurious than lifting from the floor with free weights. It’s up to you to decide if you want to deadlift yourself from the gym to an emergency room or engage in bodybuilding as safely as possible.

What Planet Fitness doesn’t want is dropping weights on the floor, grunting, and behaviors that sound intimidating or unsettling to others. (source) If you can’t do without grunting nothing stops you from grunting all you want at home before going to the gym.

If I were a gym owner there is no way you are going to break my floors with free barbells for $10 because you want to deadlift conventionally when there are many other ways of accomplishing just the same thing. Lol, didn’t mean to sound rude.

How to deadlift at Planet Fitness.

We have found out deadlifting at Planet Fitness is possible and anyone is free to try it out but for good reasons, it has to be done on a Smith machine. You can call that Smith-machine-deadlifts. This is reputed to be safer and beginner-friendly.

It’s also great for aging adults looking to stay healthy and strong with less risk of injury to their backs. Smith machines essentially keep the ambulance away but to ensure your safety you will need to train to lift with proper form and position yourself rightly about the machine.

Smith machine deadlifts, like conventional deadlifts, follow a guideline designed for effectiveness and safety.

There are two types of smith machines based on the bar path.

1. Straight or vertical bar path.
2. Angled bar path.

To deadlift the right way, where you will stand around the machine will depend on the type of machine. With the vertical bar path, you can stand inside the machine or stand facing it. However, with the angled bar path, you will need to stand inside the machine to reduce the strain on your lower back.

Deadlift on Planet Fitness Smith machine.

Starting position

• Stand with the bar as close to you as possible. Stand inside the machine if you are using the angled machine such that it’s angled towards your face and away from your feet.
• Your feet should be hip-width apart with the bar over the middle of your feet.
• Hands by your sides.
• Eyes should be fixed on a spot a few meters before you.
• Push in your abdominal muscles and brace or contract your torso.
• Keep a straight or neutral spine throughout the exercise.

Gripping.

• Hinge at the hips as you push your hips backward keeping a straight back.
• Bend your knees slightly as you descend to grip the bars.
• Depending on how heavy the weight is, you may grip the bar with a double overhand grip or an overhand and an underhand. The latter is preferable when lifting heavier weights.
• Grip with your hands at shoulder-width apart or twice that if doing the Sumo variant of a deadlift.
• See to it that your back is not curved and your shoulders are not rounded.
• Your hips should be at a horizontal plane lower than your shoulders.
• Pinch your shoulder blades in preparation for lifting.

Lifting.

• As you lift, push your hips forward as you drive through your heels to lift the barbell, keeping a straight back or neutral spine.
• At maximum height lock your knees and squeeze your glutes.

Lowering.

• Hinge at the hips once more.
• Push the hips back and bend your knees as you lower the barbell while keeping a straight back.

In conventional dead weight lifting, the barbell is just below the middle of your shin making you lift through a greater height unlike in the Smith machine deadlifts. This makes the Smith machine deadlift very much similar to the rack pull deadlift.

If you wished to lift through a greater height as is obtainable in the conventional deadlift, practicing the deficit deadlift technique using a smith machine should amount to a conventional deadlift except that the barbell isn’t free.

A deficit deadlift demands you stand on a rack or box. Practice this, using a bar without weights to ensure the bar is at a desirable height before attaching weights to it.

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Deadlift at Planet Fitness benefits,
disadvantages, and precautions.

There is almost no workout that has benefits without its share of risks and precautions. This also applies to deadlifts at Planet Fitness using the Smith machine. It also has a few disadvantages when compared with conventional deadlifts.

Benefits.

• It’s generally safer than the free-weight barbell or conventional deadlift according to a scholarly Journal.¹
• It’s a friendlier option for beginners.
• You could lift a lot more weight using the Smith machine with less risk of injury.
• Older adults find it much more convenient and easier.
• You could do a lot more repetitions on a Smith machine than in the conventional deadlift without encountering fatigue.
• Dead weightlifting failures don’t result in crashing barbell noises, injuries, and other unsettling outcomes that could put off other gym users according to a publication by the International Conference on Innovative Technologies and Learning.²

Disadvantages of Smith machine deadlifting.

• The Smith machine provides stability to the barbell with a fixed bar path such that it gives less role to your muscles of balance and stability. As a result, you don’t get to use your muscles to stabilize the barbell as you would in the conventional deadlift. This makes for reduced effectiveness of the workout.
• With the bar almost at knee level, there is a limitation to the range you could lift from in comparison to lifting from the floor.
• Mastery of Smith machine deadlifts will still leave much to be desired when faced with the conventional deadlift whereas being good at the conventional deadlift makes Smith machine deadlifts comparatively easier.
• Smith machine deadlifts don’t have the level of bodybuilding impact as the conventional ones. Research has shown free weights are better at training the muscles according to the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.³
• The machine has several other purposes apart from deadlifts. This may make it less accessible during a very busy period in the gym with many other users in need of it for other types of workouts.

Precautions.

The precautions on Smith machine deadlifts are very similar to what you have when doing conventional deadlifts. These include:

• Keeping a straight back or neutral spine all through the movement.
• Keeping the weight close to your body to avoid excess strain or injury to your back,
• Lifting by pushing through your heels,
• Hips being lower than your shoulders, etc.

These and a few other points were highlighted in an earlier article on the precautions in performing the conventional deadlift so you may want to look them up.

If you are not yet a member of Planet Fitness there is a provision for you to check them out to see what they have got to offer you. The details about this can be obtained in another article titled Planet Fitness Day Pass.

References.

1. Cotterman, Michael L; Darby, Lynn A; Skelly, William A. (2005). Comparison of muscle force production using the Smith Machine and free weights for bench press and squat exercises. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research; champaign.  Vol. 19, Iss. 1, 169-76. DOI:10.1519/14433.1. https://www.proquest.com/openview/a0992419ab134509ce04d1fca5ce9cd5/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=30912
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2. Sheu, K., Chen, Cc. (2018). An Adjustable Safety Device with Quick Return Structure for the Weightlifting Training. In: Wu, TT., Huang, YM., Shadiev, R., Lin, L., Starčič, A. (eds) Innovative Technologies and Learning. ICITL 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11003. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99737-7_66 ↩︎
3. Schwanbeck, Shane; Chilibeck, Philip D; Binsted, Gordon. A Comparison of Free Weight Squat to Smith Machine Squat Using Electromyography. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 23(9):p 2588-2591, December 2009. | DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181b1b181 ↩︎