Sumo deadlift thread

[Hamburgerfan]

I'm going to open this thread with a video of my technique for critique, but I thought it could serve as a broader thread for form and programming discussion in general, so people could share training ideas, technical tips and tricks, and useful assistance exercises.


This was my third attempt a couple of weeks ago. 562 on the bar. I recently switched to doing a narrow stance sumo deadlift. May widen it later, or may not. I think the bar speed is good for a max attempt, perhaps thanks to the dynamic start I'm using, but my legs are shaking a bit and the bar comes up a bit unevenly. There seems to be some room for improvement in these areas.

What do you guys think?

[Cody]

It looks like you could get your hips lower and a more vertical torso. You're basically just doing a conventional deadlift right now.

[DirtyRed]

I came in here to shit all over sumo deadlifts and everyone who does them and probably even sumo wrestlers for inspiring them and for not ever really WRESTLING but just pushing each other backwards, but something you did causes your video to not display for me. Which I'm PRETTY SURE isn't a me problem, as I've seen other videos on this site without issue.

[Cody]

I came in here to shit all over sumo deadlifts and everyone who does them and probably even sumo wrestlers for inspiring them and for not ever really WRESTLING but just pushing each other backwards, but something you did causes your video to not display for me. Which I'm PRETTY SURE isn't a me problem, as I've seen other videos on this site without issue.

Except that it displays perfectly for me, so it probably IS a you problem. Have you considered trying to load the page with a different browser?

[OCG]

Do you actually pull more sumo? Have you actually tried a good long run at both conventional and sumo and do you in fact pull more sumo is a question I see so many people never bother to ask and they just assume sumo must work betterer. Not really talking about you though Hamburger, more so the criteria I would have someone pull sumo under.

So, it looks like you need to get more abduction and get your knees out more. This will get your hips lower and your back more vertical. A cue for this is to think about driving your hips forwards off of the floor and to not let them kick up at the start. Think about it like a squat, if we let the hips shoot up, it'll pull the knees in.

The real question is, what about sumo presses?

[KDW]

It looks fine. My only critique is go wider. What was the reason for going narrower?

You are getting a lot of interference with the hands and the legs with this narrower stance, and you want to minimize that. I disagree with lower hips and more vertical tors with this stance. You can't do that with this narrower stance or else you'll just end up shooting your hips up at the start.

However, your hips will get lower if you go wider, your back angle would get more vertical as a result, and your hands will have less thigh interference.

[DirtyRed]

The real question is, what about sumo presses?

Sumo presses are an exercise for plebeians. Sumo chins up are for patricians lifters.

[Hamburgerfan]

It looks fine. My only critique is go wider. What was the reason for going narrower?

You are getting a lot of interference with the hands and the legs with this narrower stance, and you want to minimize that. I disagree with lower hips and more vertical tors with this stance. You can't do that with this narrower stance or else you'll just end up shooting your hips up at the start.

However, your hips will get lower if you go wider, your back angle would get more vertical as a result, and your hands will have less thigh interference.

Thanks for the input, I think you may be correct. I decided to pull sumo just a few weeks prior to the meet, so I didn't want to jump into an extreme technique. I figured I could move the stance outward over time.

[simonrest]

I've had some coaching in sumo pulls. Advice was that foot placement should result in vertical shins at the start of the pull. I found that pulling that way put a lot more load onto the abductors and I didn't like it, so didn't stick it out and try to improve.

I pulled for a couple of years with a narrow sumo like the above video. Made it more quad dominant and allowed me to open my hips and set my back better. I always trained both styles and at one point my sumo plateaued while my conventional got better and then surpassed my sumo pull, so I switched back and dropped sumo pulls altogether.

[mbasic]

I guess this goes here . . .

. . . Bill Star, on the usefulness of the Sumo Deadlift:

Now for some variations. My favorite is the Sumo version of the deadlift. What I like about the Sumo style is that it hits the adductors much more so than the conventional style and those groups are difficult to strengthen unless you have access to an adductor machine. Most don’t. I would guess that about 33% of all the athletes I dealt with at Hopkins came in with relatively weak adductors. This is because the quads, abductors, and even the hamstrings get a lot more work during the participating of any sport, so they lag behind until the athletes starting going low in the back squat and bring their adductors up to par. But even then, squatting and deadlifting with a wide stance hits them in a slightly different manner, so I build both into all of my strength programs.

[KOTJ]

some people definitely need to pull sumo, if they want to lift heavy (relative) weights; their lower backs just cant set and maintain extension.

if you do sumo, id recommend starting on the narrow side, and gradually increasing width over a few weeks. I've only coached 3 new, sumo lifters, and both initially had hip issues initially. you're not going to lose your gains in 2-3 weeks, but you may decrease the chance of injury, and may better form quickly.

[OCG]

some people definitely need to pull sumo, if they want to lift heavy (relative) weights; their lower backs just cant set and maintain extension.

And by what mechanism do you think this happens?

[KOTJ]

some people definitely need to pull sumo, if they want to lift heavy (relative) weights; their lower backs just cant set and maintain extension.

And by what mechanism do you think this happens?

I don't know and frankly don't care. Both types of deadlifts are legitimate, and if one allows someone to pull the same or more weight, safely, I don't care.

[OCG]

Weaksauce. That kind of magical thinking is exactly the kind of brosicence we critique a lot of powerlifters for.

[KOTJ]

Weaksauce. That kind of magical thinking is exactly the kind of brosicence we critique a lot of powerlifters for.

What magical thinking? Observing something, trying to fix it with lots of experimenting, then going another version of a lift, to increase strength and reduce injury?

Unless someone can prove that the conventional deadlift is objectively better than the sumo deadlift, I don't care.

I've done a significant amount of experimenting on 2 lifters. One over the course of 2.5 years, the other over the course of around 4-5 months. Neither had pulled sumo and both had trained conventional for at least 1 year.

[perman]

Weaksauce. That kind of magical thinking is exactly the kind of brosicence we critique a lot of powerlifters for.

It's the kind of thing Rip dismisses as phenomenology, and while I can see his point, there's good phenomenology, and bad phenomenology.
Bad phenomenology:
- Ed Coan did narrow sumo, therefore that's the best way to do sumo.
Good phenomenology:
- Mike Tuchscherer has many lifters struggling with keeping their back straight. He tries out a variety of approaches to correct this (including sumo), and observes under what conditions and how often each approach succeed or fail.

The latter phenomenological approach relies on statistics and brute force, and is valid because the numbers reveal something deduction hasn't. You may then formulate theories on what is going on (which @KOTJ is not doing here), but the empiricism is more important for revealing what's usually most effective than the speculation about mechanisms after the fact.

For all of Rip's rumblings about phenomenology, he refers to his experience frequently as justification, which is just accumulated phenomenology really...

[mgil]

@OCG, I think @KDW has a good sense of the heuristic for sumo. For guys, if the bar is touching your junk at lockout, you might consider sumo. This metric takes into account torso length and the relative arm length.

There are also several folks that can’t get their lower back set on conventional. Using Rip's setup procedure, I can’t. But the “dynamic” start, a reduced version of what the strongman competitors use, allows me to.

I think my ultimate reason for switching was that my stenosis finally caught up with me. Pulling sumo allows me to lock in my lower back easier and also puts it at a better angle to pull. Shear forces do mean something, it would appear.

[mgil]

Also, @perman is right in that Rip relies heavily on anecdotal evidence. Further, he will dismiss “YNDTP” people from his gym/coaching. Sure he has a lot of evidence, but the collection method has bias.

[mbasic]

Well, there's two things going:

1 - The conventional deadlift is in the ProgramTM for 'reasons'.
So maybe the sumo doesn't fit His idea of what muscle that lift is supposed to target, and whye, etc.
So I give Him a pass there, its His program.
BUT, what he'd never admit or do, is say if a guy couldn't get into extension, or a guy/gal had weird body proportions . . .
. . .He would just have the lifter struggle through it, and pull in flexion, or with some goofy mechanics.
HE WOULD NEVER suggest putting a spacer under the plates, or lowering the hips a tad, or just doing heavy RDLs with straps for
the "pull movement" of the program.
(i.e. something that does almost the exact same thing as a conv.deadlift, but that's not a conv.deadlift).

2-Rip etal. just shits on sumo from powerlifting perspective also.
Latest was "all the heaviest deadlifts were pulled conventional".
Right^ . . . but he dances around, or doesn't give up, the obvious the reasons for this.
(SHWs are going to lift all of the ultimate "heaviest" lifts;
and sumo apparently doesn't suit their SHW body frame well . . .duh)

[mgil]

2-Rip etal. just shits on sumo from powerlifting perspective also.
Latest was "all the heaviest deadlifts were pulled conventional".
Right^ . . . but he dances around, or doesn't give up, the obvious the reasons for this.
(SHWs are going to lift all of the ultimate "heaviest" lifts;
and sumo apparently doesn't suit their SHW body frame well . . .duh)

But he doesn't care about PL.

Regardless the musculature used between the two is (numbers coming from rearendhole) probably about 95% similar in both function and effort.

Also, a lot of the SHW dudes can use the fluff and momentum from hips rising to their advantage, so that's probably why so many of them pull conventional. However, most of them pull less than they squat. That leads to this question: how many competitive sumo pullers are pulling less than they squat? Answering this question (I don't know) might lead to some further insight.