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I hear a lot of people say that their backs get really thick from deadlifts. How is this possible. From my knowledge, deads strengthen the low back and the traps, but they don't add size or density to the lats.
Am I wrong? Can you get away with not doing them? I recently tore a ligament in my low back and so I won't be doing deads for a while. REDROCK
Well since your injury won't allow it, I wouldn't worry about it. But once you heal and given the ok I'd do them. They will add crazy thickness even to lats. Think of deadlifts if performed properly a TOTAL back workout all rolled up into one lift.
If DL's do work the lats, then i don't feel it. I do lats the day after DL day and it doesn't stop me from having a bad lat workout at all, in fact doing DL's don't even affect my lats the day after.
I think one of the reasons DL's can add thickness to the lats or really any bodypart is because of the amount of natural testoterone and growth hormone that it releases.
I find that I get a really good stretch of my back muscles in the beginning of a DL and a nice contraction to control it coming back down. Other than that, I notice it most in the lower back, but I refuse to wear a weight belt so that could have something to do with it.
I feel them in my lats and most of my back. It's all in how you do them. I do deads right after I've done lat pull downs when doing a back workout. I try to bring the weight down slowly and make it follow my body going down instead of letting it hang straight down. I also squeeze and force it towards me when bringing it up and give and extra squeeze at the top. This ends up working like doing a bent over row cheat set with a real large amount of weight when coming back up with the weight. I get a better pump from that then when doing the lat pull downs.