By Dr. Zack Rushing

The “perfect” deadlift does not exist, if it did the person executing it would lift a weight so heavy that setting it back down would punch a hole in the earth and cause a major earthquake. This is no different than the perfect swim stroke not existing. Michael Phelps does a pretty damn good job of executing a swim stroke, but it was still never perfect. It doesn’t mean that he never stopped chasing it or never stopped getting coached on how to do it better.

That being said…the deadlift is so amazing for the posterior chain of muscles and for strengthening the back and preventing low back pain when it is DONE PROPERLY. When it is done improperly, people make their way into my office to fix them because of their poor deadlift technique. My goal with righting this article is to give you the latest information on how to do a proper deadlift, as close to perfect as possible, to reduce injury and enhance your performance.

For a while I was down on the deadlift. I may have even told you face to face that I was because it caused so many patients to make appointments to come see me. Luckily for me I have some amazing colleagues that put me on to some great information that allowed me to expand my knowledge that I can share with all of you.

​At Vallejo Chiropractic, we are now offering Kinesiology Taping or “K-Taping” to our clients. Some of you may have seen this colorful taping at the Olympics where athletes of almost every sport are wearing it. It is also very popular at the CrossFit games, where the participants are looking for extra support as they are lifting. 

Dr. Kunsman, Dr. Zack, Beau and Shanon took a seminar to see how we could apply this method to our patients at Vallejo Chiropractic. It turns out that taping has a huge value for rehabilitating our patients and can help relieve pain as they progress through care. 

We believe that movement is a key factor to getting you better. K-Taping allows us to have another tool to help you get back in action.

When you have an injury to an area, the body’s tissues get compressed down and almost glued together. This compression is a reaction to prevent more immediate damage, but it slows the healing process. K-Taping takes skin and muscle tissue that has been adheased together and lifts it; allowing for more circulation. You can place the tape over a bruise and it will heal faster than without it. 
K-Taping also brings more neurological attention to the area of your injury. Having the tape on your skin causes the brain to send more signals to where the tape is. Touch is very powerful, and if you have something like Kinesiology Tape constantly in contact with the skin and moving with it, more feedback will be provided to the brain than without it.