Sorry to hear about your injury. I am also of the opinion that almost everything can be fixed in time with the right approach.

Lifting stones is more like doing a combo of a (sorta) clean and Zercher squat than it is a deadlift. The fact that you’re pulling with straight arms all the way up on the DL makes a big difference in the amount of stress transfered to your back, particularly your discs.

You can get away with lifting a sandbag, stone, etc. with a rounded back because the weight is held tight to your body once it’s in place. Of course, the awkwardness of the stone or sandbag means you can’t lift as much weight, either. So just from looking at the physics, it’s pretty clear that there’s way less stress on the spinal discs when lifting a 200 lb stone than doing a 450+ DL with a bent back.

Infortunately I speak from experience. I was pulling 500 for 5 in the DL when I was in my early 20s. Poor form and my own impatience led to a severe back injury that nags me to this day (I’m almost 35). And there is no way I could pull that now without another severe injury. I’ve worked around it with Romanian DLs,front squats, etc., *almost* perfect form, and not pushing my strength limits too much. Even then, my back goes out once a year. And I stretch, do lots of core work, lots of PT and foam roller work, etc.

But the fact is I will always have this injury. Slow and steady wins the race, man. Persoanlly I’d rather be pulling 315 for 5 sets of 5 at 60 than sitting around talking about how I used to lift and be healthy.

If you never locked out your joints you’d have a hard time getting through life. Makes sense to me that you should also do that in training which will strengthen the end range of motion as well as the bones and connective tissues.

As a girl, I’ve always been told (and believed) that “perfect form” is crucial to avoid injury – of course, I’ve also been told to stick to 2 – 5lb. weights. Talk about ridiculous. A newborn baby weighs more than that, and most women carry their babies pretty regularly until they are at least 2 years old. And there’s no such thing as perfect form with a wiggly baby That’s why core strength is so important.

I did worry a bit when I got conflicting info, though, such as when you said to lock out my knees or elbows, while in the martial art that I practice, we are told to NEVER lock out the joints because it restricts the flow of energy. Now I won’t worry anymore. It seems much more effective just to do what works within the realm of good sense.

I test it, if it tests well, I pull in a fashion that feels the safest and strongest for me. I have not had a single issue since doing this. And imagine this, my pulls are bigger than when I did them with “perfect” form.

Lifting more weight and not getting hurt. I MUST be doing something wrong…

Why do I think I can get away with it now? I only deadlift when the movement feels good and tests well. If it ceases to do so I stop. And I do not go all out. Would I hurt myself if I avoided these two things? Yes, I very well could and likely would.

Again look at the stone lifting example I gave and deadlifters now and throughout history. If you think any degree of back flexion will hurt you (as in you can’t squat all the way down as I’ve seen some research say) you’re limiting what you can do.

Check out the research done by Stuart McGill. only a tiny degree of flexion is needed to cause herniation in a disk. You may have to step back on your weight, but when you do finally get up to where you were, you are going to be stronger and more effecient.

Sure it works, but a cart and horse works too. We don’t use those anymore because we have better ways of doing things.