Hi everyone,

I’ve been trying to minimize the amount of back rounding in my deadlift, but I’m struggling to figure out what exactly I need to change.

**BW:** 70 kg  
**Weight:** 130 kg  
**Deficit:** \~3.5 cm

This was also fairly close to my max, especially considering the deficit.

I’ll add a video from another angle in the comments.

# Cues I currently use

* I try to make my arms as long as possible and can feel tension through my upper back/lats.
* I try to pull the slack out of the bar and push/open my knees into position before the bar leaves the floor. I can feel my glutes engaging.
* My brace also feels fairly tight.
* From what I can see, my hips aren't shooting up significantly before the bar moves.
* My shoulders seem to be roughly over the bar.

Despite all this, when I watch the lift from the side, I really dislike how rounded my back looks.

# Things I've experimented with

**Grip width:**  
With a wider grip, I seem to get better leg drive, but I lose some upper-back tension.

With a narrower grip, I can create much better upper-back tension, but it feels like I lose some leg drive.

**Stance width:**  
A wider stance seems to give me better glute engagement, but again I feel like I lose some upper-back tightness.

A narrower stance gives me the opposite trade-off.

So far, I haven't found a setup where everything seems to click at the same time.

# What I'm confused about

I'm currently stuck between a few ways of thinking about this.

**1. Maybe I should just keep getting stronger.**

I didn't feel any pain during the lift, and I'm genuinely trying to execute all the cues properly.

Since I'm also progressively increasing the weight, maybe I shouldn't expect every rep to look perfect. If my technique is 70–80% there, perhaps getting stronger will eventually make these weights look cleaner.

**2. Maybe some amount of rounding is just how I'm built.**

I think I have a relatively long torso, so I'm wondering whether my proportions naturally make my starting position look more rounded.

At the same time, I don't want to use "body proportions" as an excuse for something that is actually a technique problem.

**3. Maybe I need to reduce the weight and rebuild the movement.**

I'm completely fine with spending 1–2 weeks using lighter weights and working specifically on technique.

The problem is that I don't actually know **what** I should change.

I've watched a lot of deadlift tutorials and spoken to several people at my gym, but I still haven't found the cue or setup adjustment that makes things click.

So I'd really appreciate some help debugging the lift:

* Where exactly is the problem occurring?
* Is the amount/location of rounding actually concerning?
* Is my starting position wrong, or am I losing position once I initiate the pull?
* Are there any setup changes or cues you'd recommend trying?
* Or am I focusing too much on making the deadlift *look* perfectly straight from the side?

I'm happy to work on the technique as much as needed. I just want to understand what the actual issue is rather than randomly changing my grip, stance, or cues every session.

Thanks!

Minimizing Rounded Back