How do I know if my deadlift bar path is efficient?
An efficient pull keeps the bar travelling in close to a straight vertical line over the middle of the foot, from the floor to the lockout. Film from the side with the camera near hip height and both bar ends visible, then scrub to the moment the plates leave the floor and to the lockout, and compare where the bar sits horizontally in each. A bar that swings out in front of the shins and then back in is doing extra work and usually signals hips that rose early or a torso that pitched forward. A bar dragged hard into the shins can look vertical but leaves scrape marks and a stalled start. What video cannot tell you is how much of the deviation is choice and how much is proportion: a tall athlete with long femurs will show a different bar-to-body relationship than a short-limbed one at exactly the same quality of pull.
What the deadlift rubric measures
ScoreRep reviews torso inclination, hip hinge, horizontal bar deviation, terminal hip extension and visible symmetry. The side or oblique view is required for the principal pulling criteria.
The system does not claim to measure spinal loading or diagnose a rounded spine from a two-dimensional clip. Torso movement is used as a visible proxy with explicit limitations.
- Hip hinge at the start
- Torso position during the pull
- Bar path relative to the body
- Hip extension at lockout
- Visible left-right symmetry where supported
Does this deadlift rep count?
ScoreRep answers that in two separate steps. First, the clip has to read as a deadlift at all: every check in the table below has to pass, and a reading the camera could not take counts as a fail, never as a pass. A clip that fails is returned unranked with the reason attached, rather than scored low against the wrong rubric, and no template can override a failed check.
Second, the scoring criteria award points. Falling short of a full-marks threshold costs points, not the rep. Every number here is read from version 1 of the deadlift rubric, the same file the scoring engine runs.
- Compare the deadlift standard with the other 29 movements on the movement standards page.
- How the rep counter decides between a valid rep and a no-rep, station by station.
| Reading | Has to be | Otherwise rejected because |
|---|---|---|
| Vertical travel of the hips across the rep | 0.06 or more | the hips do not travel far enough |
| Largest hip angle in the rep | 150° or more | the hips never reach full extension, so this does not read as a deadlift |
| Whether the hands finish above the shoulders | no | the movement finishes overhead, so it is not a deadlift |
| Smallest knee angle in the rep | 100° or less | the knees do not bend at set-up, which reads as a Romanian deadlift rather than a conventional deadlift |
| Torso lean in the starting position | 20° or more | the torso is too upright at the start, which reads as a Romanian deadlift or a hang clean rather than a deadlift from the floor |
Which deadlift faults are visible on video?
The pull is a short movement with a small number of failure points, and most of them announce themselves in the first third of the rep. Reviewing the same five things every time keeps the analysis honest and stops one dramatic-looking frame from dominating the assessment.
- Hips shooting up before the bar moves — the legs stop contributing and the pull becomes a stiff-legged lift. Slow the start and take the slack out of the bar first.
- Bar drifting away from the shins — usually paired with a shoulder position too far behind the bar at setup.
- A jerky start where the bar is yanked — the plates rattle before they rise. Build tension against the bar and start smoothly.
- Leaning back and hyperextending at the top — the lockout is finished when the hips and knees are straight, not when the shoulders travel behind them.
- Uneven lockout or one plate lifting first — worth filming from the front and treating as a reason to reduce load and look closer.
Record from the side of the bar
Use a stable phone position around hip height and keep both bar ends, plates and the full athlete visible. A slight oblique angle can preserve joint visibility while still showing the bar path.
Avoid placing the camera directly on the floor or so close that the head or plates leave the frame.
Can a video tell me whether my back is rounding dangerously?
No, and any tool that claims otherwise is overselling what a single camera can see. A pose model estimates a small number of landmarks — roughly shoulders and hips for the trunk — so it can describe how far the torso tipped and whether that changed across a set. It cannot resolve individual vertebrae, it cannot measure the load passing through any tissue, and it cannot distinguish a braced, slightly flexed position an experienced lifter uses deliberately from a position that is failing. Some spinal flexion under load is normal and not automatically harmful. Use the visible torso trend as a prompt: if the torso is collapsing further with each rep of a set, that is a fatigue signal worth acting on. Persistent pain is a question for a clinician, not for a scoring rubric.
How heavy should the bar be for a filmed form check?
Film the load you actually want information about, but understand what each choice tells you. A light warm-up set shows what your technique looks like when nothing is forcing a compromise, which makes it a good reference but a poor predictor. A moderate working set — heavy enough to demand a real brace, light enough to complete every rep without grinding — is where most useful evidence sits, because faults appear while the movement is still recognisable. A near-maximal single shows how the pattern behaves under stress, which is worth knowing occasionally, but it is a bad basis for comparison across a training block because one rep carries too much noise. Whatever you pick, keep it in the same range next time. A cleaner-looking pull at twenty kilos lighter is not evidence that anything improved.
Compare like with like
Use similar camera position, load range and rep style when comparing sessions. A change in framing can alter what the model can see and should not be mistaken for a change in technique.
Conventional and Romanian deadlifts are separate movements with separate expectations, so keep them in separate comparisons even when the camera setup is identical.