I use to have serious back issues/pulls/pain when I was involved in TKD and when I started into powerlifting a began doing heavy back quad and thigh work and the back issues went away.
I learned very early in order to not break something it has to be tight and hard so that is what I did with my body prior to a deadlift. I learned proper techniques for squat, box squat, bent knee good mornings, and deadlifts. The first thing in the set up for a deadlift I always made sure I had long arms, was a little back on my heals, head and chest up. Once I was good with my set up position... I would pre-squeeze (tighten) all my main muscles involves in the move ( glutes, lower back, abs, obliques, thighs, uppers back) took a big breathe and hold then pushed through the floor using my quads and glutes mainly keeping core tight all the way through, to the knees then push shoulders back and hips through.
I never got hurt on a pull as far as I can remember ( and I was always training in the 400 to high 500 range), the pre-squeeze/tightening of the movers protected my lower back from moving out of place, and I finally had no back pain like I did in TKD.
Another thing that saved me I never did a lot of reps in a set of deadlifts, and I always reset and started the deadlift from scratch, I never bounced.
Was working with a guy on his deadlift and he could not get past 3 plates a side, his form looked real good and I asked him if he was pre-squeezing his muscles before he lifted and he said no. That day I swear he went from a 315 deadlift to a 495 just from the setup and pre-squeeze. The guy could not believe it. He told me ... the weight felt so much lighter.
