The Single Best Exercise For Longevity

Life is heavy, both inside the gym and out - and if you want to conquer the weight of the world with absolute confidence, there is one ultimate human movement you need to master.

In this episode of It's Supposed to Be Heavy, personal trainer Jermiah Blount breaks down why the deadlift is a non-negotiable movement for people of all ages and fitness levels. 

He challenges the traditional "bench press" gym culture, explaining how the deadlift builds full-body functional strength, restores proper posture, and prevents the physical decline associated with aging. 

From technical tips on barefoot lifting and bar placement to the psychological benefits of feeling powerful, Jermiah shares his coaching philosophy on how lifting heavy relative to your body ultimately enriches your entire quality of life.

0:07: The Bold Claim
0:19: The Ultimate Full-Body Exercise
0:34: Real-World Strength
2:04: Built for Everyday Life
4:38: Fixing Back Pain
6:14: The Reality of Injury Risk
6:39: What "Heavy" Really Means
17:27: Life is Heavy

"If you can pick up weight off the ground, you can pick yourself off the ground."

"If you have a coach that knows what he's doing... you have a higher chance of going outside and tripping over a curb and hurting yourself than actually hurting yourself during the deadlift."

"My big thought is, just like lifting weights, life is heavy, so why not learn how to lift it?"

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it.

About Jermiah Blount: Jermiah has harbored a deep passion for health, fitness, and strength ever since his tenure in the Air Force. He finds fulfillment in assisting individuals in enhancing their lives by promoting strength, well-being, and proper nutrition through the utilization of Heavyish principles.

Check us out at:
https://www.instagram.com/heavyishgym/
https://www.tiktok.com/@heavyishgym

#fitness #strengthtraining #deadliftbenefits

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

If you could pick up weight off the ground, you can pick yourself off the ground. So balance is a big thing, and also confidence is a big thing. Weight training, especially training heavy, especially with a movement like the deadlift, can build confidence in a person in all ages.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to It's Supposed to Be Heavy with Jeremiah Blount, a show about strength, longevity, and building a body that carries you well for decades. Because resistance creates adaptation. And some things are supposed to be heavy. Let's get to work.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Hi, my name is Jeremiah Blunt. I am a personal trainer out of Franklin, Tennessee. This is the It's Supposed to Be Heavy podcast. Today's topic is why everyone should deadlift.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

So, what is it about the deadlift? Like why that seems like an extreme statement.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Everybody should deadlift. Everybody should deadlift. Essentially, when we look at the deadlift versus all the other movements, if you can choose one that is going to hit pretty much the entire body, is it going to hit every muscle group? No, but it will hit your upper and lower body. When we look at things that we do in day-to-day life, from picking things up off the floor or even having to carry something, the deadlift can translate into your personal life. And it's a good way to be able to push yourself, overload the muscle, and gain strength by pulling something from the ground and then using a lot more weight than you would traditionally do in maybe the bench press, the overhead press, or even the squat.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Yeah, and traditionally when people think strength training, they think bench press. If you played football in high school or you went to a high school gym or college gym, everybody was bench pressing and gym bros are all about how much do you bench? But today you go into a planet fitness or any kind of gym that has squat racks and you'll see people doing RDLs and deadlifts and floor and floor stuff. The deadlifts kind of come back in style and it's much more popular than it had been. Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Essentially, one of the reasons why that is, is for the longest time, I don't believe it was taught the proper way. People would use the excuse there's a risk-to-reward ratio. And also you have to look at what are you training for, right? You have to pick what you're training for, essentially, is what I'm trying to get to. And what I train in my methodology is essentially making your life better and making you a better person all the way around, stimulating the larger muscle groups and improving your life. A lot of bodybuilders necessarily use the movement. Do I think they should? Yes, but that is what they are training for. If you were in your later age, as we mature in life, it is definitely something you want to focus on because you can translate that to your life. Also, it is good for working being able to just stabilize yourself. If you could stabilize yourself by picking up heavyweight off the ground and then stand with it, then you're going to be able to stand in the shower, no problem.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

You often say that lift is a human movement. It's mimics something that you do in everyday life. And so can you think of five common things that the deadlift mimics that somebody might do in their everyday life that redlift would help them do things better?

SPEAKER_02 2:53

So some of the things you may notice essentially when it comes to a human movement and translating it into what we're doing for one is if you have animals being able to pick up an animal. If you have grandchildren, being able to squat down, pick up the grandchildren, standing up. Also, it's good to strengthen your back. Not everybody has their pots and pans on a top shelf. Sometimes you have to squat down, grab things, stand up. If you're painting the garage or doing home projects at home, getting down, picking up the lumber or whatever you're maybe doing, carrying them. There's just you can translate it to multiple things that we do around the house.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

And you notice when people age, one of the first things they lose is they struggle to get down on the ground and have a really hard time getting off the ground. Or if they drop something on the ground, it's really a lot of work to get down and pick it up. That in your clients they come in and they don't have balance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Balance is a huge one. Also, having the confidence, if you struggle with squatting, just getting down and getting back up, it could definitely increase your confidence in yourself if you're just able to pick up weight off the ground. Because if you could pick up weight off the ground, you can pick yourself off the ground. So balance is a big thing, and also confidence is a big thing. Weight training, especially training heavy, especially with a movement like the deadlift, can build confidence in a person in all ages. It doesn't necessarily have to be older, right? It's just the more confident you are in yourself, the more you're going to push yourself and the better off your overall life is going to be.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

And a lot of women deadlift. This is the really surprising thing. I mean, especially older women, you'll see people who are worried about osteoporosis or curved back, and they'll start deadlifting and their posture will suddenly improve or over. Right.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Why is that? Because you're strengthening your back, right? A lot of your posture comes from your rear delt, it comes from your upper back, it comes from your back in general. And if you have a good, strong back and you have the muscles to stabilize your back, protect your spine, then you're going to have a better popper posture.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

And one of the worries about the deadlift is that it causes injury or the people are worried they're going to hurt themselves. It seems very heavy. It seems like you're in a compromised position. And people are always told, be careful to lift things off the floor, lift your back. And techniques obviously really important, but it looks like your clients, when they start doing deadlifting, even with reasonable weights, get stronger back. Oh they stop having back trouble.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

You will stop having back trouble. A lot of times when people have these back issues, it's because they have a weak back. And when you can strengthen that, because you're also strengthening your lower posterior chain, if you have a strong lower body, well, your overall health and your overall body is going to be good. But with a movement like that where you're pairing them both together, you're pretty much setting yourself up for success.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

I imagine it's expensive to age poorly when you're not strong.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Well, it is, right? Because when you look at your health and then you look at the movements and you look at your strength and everything along those lines, as you get stronger, you're able to do more. You're able to be more active and do more things. Us stopping as human beings are the absolute worst thing we can do. So as we get older, we should be active. We should be pushing ourselves to lift heavier weights. We should be doing these things because age is just a number. And if you feel good and you're still moving and you're still doing great things, then you're gonna live a long, happy life.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Why do you think the deadlift as it stands today, even though it's gone through massive resurgence, largely thanks to CrossFit? But why is it why does it have a stigma? Why did people stop doing the deadlift at one point?

SPEAKER_02 6:13

People stopped doing the deadlift because it was improperly trained for most times. If you look at what you were doing and people outside of a controlled environment, especially with the outside of a coach, just in experiences with the clients I have, it is a great tool, but there is a very small margin that you could potentially hurt yourself. And that's why ego lifting gets thrown out the door. That's why you do it in a controlled environment. Find a coach that really knows how to deadlift, let him train you, and then you don't have to have those worries. If you have a coach that knows what he's doing, you have a coach that knows how to deadlift and how to coach you, then you have a higher chance of going outside and tripping over a curve and hurting yourself than actually hurting yourself during the deadlift.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

And people see deadlifts, they see all the plates on the end, but you have clients that are up in their 80s even and they start deadlifting with relatively lightweight. It doesn't have to be super heavy to start.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

No, no, no. And I mentioned this before on a previous lifting heavy is relative to the person, right? Not everybody's gonna start off with the same weight, not everybody's gonna have the same strength. So me as a coach and the individual that is training, or if you're doing this on your own, is you know, if it feels heavy, it's heavy, right? Don't try to disability because someone next to you or you've seen someone on the internet lifting astronomical weight, doesn't mean you have to lift astronomical weight to stimulate yourself and grow, right? We are all different people, we are all different sizes, we are all different individuals. Train what's heavy for you.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

If somebody wanted to start deadlifting, where and obviously it would be good to work with a coach and have supervised lifting because life's safer and you'll have a much better health result. But how do they go about learning how to deadlift? What are the tips for somebody when they start to deadlift? What's your advice to someone?

SPEAKER_02 7:57

My number one advice would be obviously to find a coach. Second thing is do your research. There's a lot of great people out there that know how to teach the deadlift. Some of the tips I would do to mention is making sure that your bar stays midfoot, making sure that you have a good angled back. You're not rolling your shoulders, you're not hunching when you lift up. You're just keeping proper form and keep it steady. Lift heavy, make sure that you never break form during the process and keep the bar close, right? The more you drift out because you want to speed up the movement, the higher the chances of you getting hurt.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

When you say bar midfoot, you mean the barbell should be over the center of your foot?

SPEAKER_02 8:34

So essentially, for most people, unless you're really, really short with super, super big feet, or you're really tall with a little bit of tiny feet, essentially right there where the knot where you tie your shoe strings is for most people would be center of foot. So that way when you get in your position, your feet are roughly between six to eight inches apart, right? You'll get in your position, you'll set up, and then when you go down to bring your knees to the bar, never bring the bar to you, right? It's gonna be right there. You're gonna be able to pull it up your body and you wanna land right there, right? If you start speeding up and the bar goes out further, you're putting so much pressure on your lower back that you're gonna potentially gonna hurt yourself. So the bar should almost roll up your shins and I am a big fan of dragging them up my shins. It is not for everybody, as long as you are as close as possible. If you are another if you're worried about hurting your shins, you you can wear leggings under your shorts or something along those lines, higher socks, but I do suggest the bar coming up as close as possible.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

And what about shoes? What kind of shoes should you wear when you deadlift?

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Uh so something nice and flat. I'm a big fan of the Chuck Taylors, and I'm also a big fan of deadlifting barefoot.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Why is that?

SPEAKER_02 9:43

No, when I barefoot, I can really feel the ground. I could feel myself pushing where I need to push. I can feel myself pushing the world away when I'm nice, flat, and solid. Sometimes when we have shoes, they're kind of angled or they may be wore a little bit differently. And then when you're pushing, you may end up pushing too much with your heel or pushing too much with your toes.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

So a pair of running shoes or hokas or on classes are the worst shoes to wear.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

I would not suggest that. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

So fans or a Chuck Taylor's or in your socks, even.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Even socks. Like I said, I quite often deadlift are footed.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

And so tell me about grip strength and why the deadlift helps with grip strength and why is grip strength important as you get older in it.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

You know, grip strength is so valuable and it's not focused on enough. There's so many things that you are going to have to do in your life that correlates with your grip strength. Even holding on to a rail as you get older walking down the steps. If you slip and you have weak grip strength and you just let go, now you're tumbling down the stairs. Now you went from a scrape to a broken bone, or worse, right? If you are in your 40s and you have kids, having that grip strength to be able to hold on to your kids or hold on to the dog leash because dogs like to get crazy and run away. Like all these things are super, super important. For men, when your wife hands you a jar, you don't want to not be able to open up the jar, do you?

SPEAKER_01 11:06

You know what would happen to your health if you'd lived for a while and then you didn't have lift for a year? What would happen to your body if you had a strong back and then stopped?

SPEAKER_02 11:13

So we're getting into an area, like I said, what you were training for. If you just stop training completely, you're gonna see a decrease in your health. You're gonna see that stress is gonna get to you easier, you're gonna see that your cortisol levels are gonna be there, you're gonna notice that day-to-day challenges are gonna get harder, not just in the gym, it's gonna be in your overall life. It's super, super important. And then you're also looking at the longevity of your life. If you stop training and you're not training, you're essentially taking years off your life that you could have easily had and enjoyed.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

But once people often say the deadlift almost more than any other lift improves confidence. What do your clients they talk about how they feel after they deadlift, other than being sore? But like, but what is it they tell you like at the next day or the next one?

SPEAKER_02 11:58

I could tell you right after the session, they're usually pretty upset because it was super, super heavy, they're tired, they're exhausted. But I'll usually eventually get the a text by the end of the day that they're like, Man, that was a great workout. I feel so good, I feel strong, I feel powerful. And especially in men, those are traits that we want to feel. If you can go throughout the day as a man and you feel strong, you feel powerful, it's gonna reflect in your life, it's gonna reflect in your family, it's gonna reflect in your job. For women, a woman that could deadlift, she's gonna feel safer, she's gonna feel more confident, she's not gonna be as scared with day-to-day activities in life because it is a scary world. And just being able to know that, hey, I'm a strong, powerful person can greatly increase your confidence.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

And you often say that it's a unique exercise, that it more than any other strength-building exercise, what is it that makes the deadlift so special?

SPEAKER_02 12:48

It essentially, and I've worked on this several times, is because of every little thing. I'm a person that little things add up, right? So when you're looking at grip strength, when you're looking at your lower body, you're looking up your back, you're looking at all these movements, how it's stimulating you, how it's growing you, right? Work your chest, you work your chest. When you work your shoulders, you work your shoulders. When you squat, depending on how you squat, he can active a few more muscles or he can isolate it. But when it comes to the deadlift, you're just using you, you're using your body, you're using the mechanics of your body. It is phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

And is there a muscle you don't use when you deadlift?

SPEAKER_02 13:22

There are some muscles that you do not use, yes, because it it is a full body workout, but it's not a every muscle workout, right? But we are hitting the important things, right? You are building that core strength. You're working your back, you're working your legs. When a lot of people feel it up in their traps, so essentially from the head down, you go down and you're working it. But yes, it does not absolutely work every single muscle, but it does work your whole body.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

But I would have said the opposite. I would have said it's a unique exercise because often clients will tell me, I feel like I'm using all of my muscles from my toes all the way to my head. That's my experience with it.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

So the deadlift uses a lot of muscles and it uses the majority of your muscles, but it does not use all of them. But it utilizes a large part of your bigger muscles. So that way you're stimulating a lot more, you're burning a lot more calories. The bigger the muscle, the more calories you're gonna burn.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Like, how often should somebody deadlift? What's your recommendations for starting strength type people who are just getting started? And once people are beginning to train in an even an intermediate level, it's not an exercise you can do daily for sure, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:24

No, it is not an exercise you can do daily. It just depends on the programming that you're on. Me personally, I suggest in the beginning, we have four core movements, right? We want to hit those four core movements, starting off if you're just beginning two days a week, and then you can build up. But you also want to have time to recover because if you're utilizing a tool like the deadlift, and then you're also pairing it later on with the squat and you're pairing it with your overhead press and you're pairing your bench press. I would give yourself several days in between to rest or recover. If you're more advanced, definitely two days a week. I would not really go over any more than that. Like once a week is a good starting point. Once a week is a perfect starting point.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

And does it take more recovery time than most exercises?

SPEAKER_02 15:07

You're stimulating more muscles, so yes. And also it depends on the person and how much you are taking care of yourself outside of the gym, right? Because we have to look at the gym, not just in the time we're in the gym. We have to look at our overall experience in life, right? If we're just getting stronger and we're just wanting to get stronger and live life, and you're taking it as in I'm wanting to improve, but I'm not just fully dedicated yet and I'm fully into it, then you may have to recover a little bit more because your sleep may be off. You may not be drinking enough water, you may not be eating enough calories, or you may be eating too many calories, and then that is an issue on its own. But if you're taking it serious and you're focusing on your sleep, you're focusing on your nutrition, you're focusing on your water, then your recovery time you'll notice is going to be a lot lower than what you think you need. But and if that's the case and you're hammering it every time, I would say 72 hours in between each lift. So if you deadlift it 72 hours later, you would hit it again.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Yeah, if you look online on social media, like you see a lot of men deadlifting and this primal manly thing, but there's also been a very large amount of a resurgence and interest in female deadlifting, and it's they do it for different reasons. It improves your glutes and your legs, and it's a good movement for everybody.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

And especially if you notice in the industry now, women are understanding that they can do these type of movements, and the biggest worry for women is oh, I don't want these big blocky shoulders, I don't want to look like this, I don't want it to look like that. But they don't realize that you're not gonna look like that, right? Some of the women that they noticed that look like that have trained for a very long time. They could be on supplements or substances that may do that, but the majority of women that lift aren't gonna have these big blocky unless they just absolutely train. But they also don't need to just focus on lower body either, which a lot of women like to do. They like to go in and skip upper body, they just focus on their glutes or legs, and then that's it. And eventually they're gonna have back problems and things later on down the road. And the deadlift works more of the whole body is a deadlift works the whole body. It is crack for your back.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

That's awesome. So, like, how does somebody get started? Like, where would you what's your recommendations for would you start with a really light bar? Like, how do you how would you how would if you didn't it never touched a barbell and wanted to start, how would you start?

SPEAKER_02 17:23

So we have to look at the person, or you have to look at their experience and you have to look at the equipment that they have. If anything, I would research like a Romanian deadlift with dumbbells, right? Start off there because not everybody may be strong enough in the beginning to work with a 45-pound bar, right? Not everywhere is gonna have specialty equipment like a personal trainer might have. So sometimes you may have to do the small things to build up to the bigger things.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

So, what's your parting idea on the deadlift and why everybody should do it?

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Do you have any big thoughts on my big thought is just light lifting weights. Life is heavy, so why not learn how to lift it?

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Thanks for listening to It's Supposed to Be Heavy with Jeremiah Blount. Train hard, recover well, stay capable, and remember aging is mandatory. Weakness is optional. See you next time.