The deadlift is not the problem. Loading a pattern your body cannot produce is the problem.
Before I put a bar in your hands, three things have to check out.
One: can you hinge without your spine moving?
I put a dowel along your spine, three points of contact, and ask you to push your hips back. If your lower back rounds or arches before your hips finish moving, you do not have a hinge yet. You have a squat with a forward lean, and loading it puts the force through the discs instead of the hips.
Two: how much hamstring range do you actually have?
Flat on your back, one leg straight, I lift it. I am looking for roughly 70 to 80 degrees before the pelvis starts to tuck under. Less than that and your pelvis will rotate at the bottom of every rep. That is what people are feeling when they say the deadlift hurts their back.
Three: can you brace and breathe at the same time?
Hand on your lower ribs, hand on your belly. I want the ribs to expand sideways, not the chest to rise. If you cannot pressurize your midsection without holding your breath, you have no stiffness to lift against.
None of this takes long. Ten minutes total, and it tells me whether we start with a barbell, a kettlebell, or a hinge pattern with no load at all.
“Today, I'm lifting the heaviest weights I've ever lifted in my life.”
Why this matters for you specifically
Most of the desk-bound clients I assess fail test one and test three. They have spent a decade in a chair, so the hinge has been replaced by a lumbar bend and the diaphragm has stopped doing its job. Handed a generic program on day one, they load exactly the pattern that is already broken, feel a twinge in week three, and conclude that deadlifts are bad for them.
Deadlifts are not bad for you. Deadlifting a pattern you cannot produce is.