It IS a language problem.
Picture a deadlift in your mind. Actually, visualize someone doing a deadlift.
Now. Did it look like this:
Did you picture someone doing a semi-sumo stance, one-kettlebell, two-arm deadlift?
If your version of deadlifting isn’t this, and we try to have a discussion on deadlifting, more often and not this spirals into a passionate discussion about why the KB deadlift is better than a barbell (or vice versa). The exercise is always the least important part of the equation – there are hundreds of ways to deadlift, the best one for the person in front of my will vary. What IS important is that I get the people I work with to the point that they can express that deadlift strategy (not hip hinge pattern) in any context with any implement at any time. THAT is being able to deadlift. If all someone can do is a sumo style barbell deadlift, then that is all they can do. This isn’t a problem, but we haven’t actually taught them competence in the strategy – we developed competence in an exercise. The deadlift, in neurodevelopmental continuum terms, is a symmetrical stance coordinated weight shift (2 weight shifts).
I go deeper into this concept in Volume 1 of our New Language of Movement Series. And guess what – it’s FREE! Download it for free here.