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Hey man. Yeah I thought as much.
Actually what I meant by higher starting position was not the height of the bar, but your hips. Let's compare these two pictures:
On the picture on the left he is deep and on the picture on the right he is higher. This dude can keep neutral spine in either position though.
Incidently, if you look at your starting positions in the two videos you posted:
Notice how the position on the right is much better for you? Your hips are higher which again doesn't require as much hip flexion. Hip flexion which seems limiting for you. If only your legs were a little shorter and arms a little longer, that would be your starting position off the floor and it wouldn't matter, but alas! Anyway, point being that a higher hip position might be preferable for you atm. Also it's a deadlift and not a squat.
Alright, now on to the second issue, which is your weight distribution and technique during the lift. Look at these stills:
Your weight comes forward in both stances as seen in the middle. This puts your center of mass further ahead of you, increasing the moment arm and making it heavier. Also, you gain forward momentum which takes weight off your glutes and hamstring and puts it on your quads. Then, you raise your hips and straighten your legs first and after they are almost completely straight, only then do you start to extend your hips. It doesn't look as bad in the first one because you are pulling from the blocks with the bar elevated and your starting position is better, but look at the second row and last picture. Your lumbar spine is bent, the bar is way infront of you and there's way too much space between the bar and your shins. That's a terrible position to deadlift from.
You want to sit back a little/pull your weight back instead of coming forward when you initiate the lift. You want to extend your knees and hips in one motion, instead of splitting it up in two like you're doing. That will also keep the bar close to your shins. It should look something like this:
One fluid motion. It takes practice. Also, remember to take a breath in and brace your core and tighten up your lats before sitting back.
Now, first things first. With your hips you'd want to do two things. One is working on hip mobility (stretching is less important) and the other is finding a good starting position you can get into with your lower back neutral. Finding that position is trial and error. I'd suggest trying to rotate your feet outwards a little more and starting from a little higher of a hip position as we talked about earlier. Film a few different setups and see what happens. From there you work on the technique of the lift.
In regards to your hip mobility, I'd suggest starting all your workouts with this:
Followed by this:
A few notes on that one. Do more reps of each progression than he's doing here. That way you'll get more out of it and get a better warmup. You don't have to be as deep in the squat as he is at the end either, just remember to squeeze your glutes and hold it for a sec or two. Take your time with each of the movements. Also, as you can see he's not using his hands for support, but I can't do this without using my hands as a help during some of it, so maybe you have to as well.
I would suggest the side plank and regular plank as well, with a focus on squeezing your glutes, and core, and pulling your tailbone in under you creating a posterior tilt. It sounds weird, but sometimes getting better core stability and control can free up some range of motion in the extremities. Maybe do a hip flexor stretch too, as you seem a little anterior tilted, and remember to stay tall and squeeze your glutes/pull your tailbone in under you/create a posterior tilt there as well. It gives a better stretch and pelvic control.
One more thing, take off your shoes before deadlifting or lift in flat shoes. Shoes with heels like the ones you're using will only contribute to the weight coming forward AND make your legs even longer.
In regards to your squats, there's a few more exercises that might help there, but that's probably for another thread.
Anyway, keep practicing. If you just can't find a good position after trying for a while, then lifting from blocks/rack as you did in the second video OR pulling from a sumo/semi sumo stance might be the answer. Don't worry, there's plenty of options!
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