Hi!
I think I’ve been accidentally performing the deadlift in two totally different ways.
Today I tried focusing on bringing the shoulders down and holding them there for the whole rep, and whew it was hard to make the bar move!
At first I thought it was just a hard day.
But then I remembered that previously I’ve been exploding the bar off the ground with a kind of row movement, using my lats and shoulders to “float” the bar off the ground by really puling back.
What should I be doing or cueing myself to do on the deadlift?
We don’t usually cue the shoulders to do anything active during the deadlift. If the weight is light, a concentric contraction of the lats and upper back musculature can sometimes lift the weight off the ground- but when it’s heavy this is not going to happen. We recommend squeezing the chest up with locked arms, perform the valsalva, and then drag the bar up your legs.
I can’t be sure without seeing video, but if you externally rotate your elbows may rotate backwards for a moment in time, though gravity will sort this out for you shortly.