Benefits and Variations of Deadlifts for Improving Strength and Health

Dr. Guillermo Contreras // #FitnessAthleteFriday // www.ptonice.com

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, Fitness Athlete faculty member Guillermo Contreras discusses the different deadlifts variations and who may best benefit from their performance.

Take a listen to the episode or check out the full show notes on our blog at www.ptonice.com/blog

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

INTRODUCTIONGood morning, everybody. Welcome to the PT on ICE daily show. It is the best day of the week, Fitness Athlete Friday. My name is Guillermo Contreras, here with you today from the Fitness Athlete crew, talking all things deadlift. So this is an exciting topic here. We just finished up our level one course last week and we just had our fitness athlete summit a couple of weekends ago. One thing that we know that throughout the one course as well as the live courses is that deadlift is typically going to be one of the most spicy topics. Should everyone be deadlifting? Why should we, why should we be deadlifting and why should we be deadlifting heavy? One of the questions we most commonly get both in the live course as well as the online course is the question of all the variations we see. The conventional deadlift versus the, you see back here, the trap bar deadlift versus the sumo deadlift. What is the best position? What is the setup? How do we coach it? How do we look at it? And if you want to dive into all that, that nitty gritty, that really deep detail stuff, highly recommend you jump into the L1 course or you join us on the road for a live course. But today, all I'm going to be talking about are the different types of deadlifts. And the topic title is a deadlift for everybody. Right? So not everybody, but everybody. Because there are instances where individuals will be using a different setup or a different variation of the deadlift to be able to move the greatest amount of load in the deadlift movement. So the ones we're going to specifically talk about today are the conventional deadlift, the one we see the most often and the one that we coach typically in the L1 course, you see in CrossFit gyms, you see done all over the place. The sumo deadlift, which we see a lot more in competitive powerlifting where they're trying to lift the heaviest amount of weight humanly possible off the ground. We trap our deadlift because we see it a lot in athletic sports and individuals using it in different ways and we'll talk about the differences there. That'll be more of like an end of the conversation discussion there. And then lastly, some variations known as kind of the hybrid deadlift. And that is just going to be a slightly different for individuals who maybe can't get into position for conventional but don't need to go sumo, we find something in the middle. So first things first, we're going to talk the conventional deadlift. we look at the conventional deadlift we want to ensure that we are set up in such a way where that bar is close to our bodies. So when I coach this out I'm telling athletes that they want to set up hip width apart so their feet are right underneath their hips for this conventional deadlift setup. From there the bar should be lined up closer to my shins. I typically will tell athletes when they look down, they should see that the bar is lined up over their shoelaces and not too far forward, because now that barbell is far away, which makes moving a heavy, heavy load a little bit harder, because it's going to pull you out of position. So we want that bar nice and close. From here, with the conventional setup, what we tend to see is my hips are going to go back. And when I'm set up in this double overhand grip, my hands are outside of my shins. And when I get all that tension on board, my knees are below my hips, my hips are below my shoulders, and I have this really nice stacked set of position in which, again, my shoulders are above my hips, my hips are above my knees, and that bar is nice and close to my body. That is going to be our conventional setup. That is the most common variation you're going to see in the CrossFit gym with any athlete that walks in, someone that's just a recreational weightlifter and is doing deadlifts on a day-to-day basis. The second most common variation we're gonna see is something called a sumo deadlift. With a sumo deadlift, that barbell, and I apologize, if you're listening on the podcast alone, some of this won't make any sense, so I'll try to talk as much as I can, but the video will give you a lot more detail on this. With a sumo deadlift, we set up with a much wider stance. So my feet, if this is hip width apart, This is shoulder width apart. This is just outside of shoulder width apart. With a sumo deadlift, we are going wider than that wide stance. The reason for this, the reason we see this in power lifting is because we are essentially just decreasing the amount of work being done. Meaning that the amount of distance the bar has to travel is less because now, rather than having to go from here to here, the motion turns into here to here. so it's a much shorter distance to travel or a much shorter distance to pull that barbell off the ground. The other big differences we see with that sumo deadlift outside of that much wider setup is gonna be that the torso angle is more vertical. So because I have this wide stance with a slightly more toed out position, or sometimes excessively toed out position, I can now set up with a much more vertical torso, and that bar can stay right underneath me. This means my erectors can be locked in a good position, I can stay nice and tall, and I'm driving through my thighs, boom, to lock that barbell out and overhead. Because I'm so wide with my legs, my grip is now just inside of my hands in this nice narrow position. Because again, I'm trying to decrease the amount of work being done by reducing the distance that bar has to travel. So that is our sumo deadlift. The points of performance still stand when I set up for a sumo deadlift here. my knees are still below my hips, right? It's just a slightly much less difference there, and my shoulders are still way above my hips, but I am much more vertical and I'm driving straight up off the ground. So it's a very different looking movement. The emphasis on load is going to be moved to different muscle groups, but it's a way to do essentially less work because you are moving a shorter distance and you can move much, much greater loads typically if you train it enough. So that is your sumo deadlift. The one here that most people don't know about, that most people don't do, is the hybrid. The hybrid is typically only given for athletes who might struggle to get into position with a conventional deadlift, but want to still be in a more narrow stance position because it's going to translate more into Olympic lifts or other type of lifts from the ground. And what that is, is if this is our conventional stance, this is our sumo stance, we break the difference and we are just slightly wider. So we're no longer just under our hips. We're now maybe just outside of our shoulders and our grip is just inside of our legs there. That setup mimics that conventional deadlift a lot. So I'm still in that hybrid deadlift. I'm sorry, I'm still in that hybrid deadlift stance here. The bar is still lined up nice and close to my shins. I'm sitting back, I'm getting over that bar, my hips are still above my knees, my shoulders are still above my hips, my hands are still nice and close to my body, and I'm pulling there, sitting back and tapping down. That one is most commonly given to athletes who just might not be able to handle that position of hip flexion in a conventional deadlift for one reason or another. or that just slightly wider position, allows them just enough room to sit comfortably into that setup for the deadlift. You'll see athletes, especially longer, taller athletes, when they go to set up in conventional deadlift, they set up here and they can only get there with this kind of nice, kind of rounded position because of how long their femurs might be, or their limbs might be, or if they have a shorter torso. So by just giving that little bit of clearance in that hip, they can sit there in that same deadlift stance, pull, and then get back down. So that would be your hybrid. So again, to recap, we have our conventional deadlift here, slightly wider for our hybrid deadlift, even wider and more upright for our sumo deadlift. That is how we pull heavyweight off the ground. Regardless of how you do your deadlifts, we know that the deadlift is one of the best ways to improve low back pain, to reduce low back pain, to reduce kinesiophobia, to build strength, resilience, and just overall good quality life and function because of the way that you're moving a heavy load off the ground, training every muscle group, strengthening your grip, strengthening your back, strengthening your hips, strengthening your posterior chain. So the deadlift should be something we should have in our arsenal. The one thing I want to give some love to is the trap bar, right? So this behemoth bar over here, we see this a lot. and it's shaped like a, what would that be, a hexagon, I think? Hexagon. We see this a lot in sports, a lot more in like, you'll see it in like football, basketball, because they just want to reduce risk. So they claim that the bar being out in front is just too unsafe. But in reality, what happens a lot of time when you have a lot of athletes, the time it takes for a strength and conditioning coach, if they don't have a large strength and conditioning staff to really coach, cue, and ensure good quality movement with a barbell deadlift, it's hard. So the trap bar takes away a lot of those things that you would normally coach by allowing an athlete to set up with the bar at their sides here and be in a more squatty position. You can get more hingey with it if you'd like, but most people are going to tend to falter back towards that more squatty movement pattern when it comes to a trap bar. There's nothing wrong with using the trap bar. The trap bar is a great way to load up that hinge pattern, that deadlift pattern, get comfortable pulling weights off the ground, even like jumping or heavy farmer scares. You can do a lot of different things with the trap bar, but it's not going to be the same thing as loading up that barbell, having good quality coaching, ensuring that that back is being nice and strong and holding that really stiff, strong position as you hinge forward. And that's where a lot of that magic happens with the barbell deadlift. So again, trap bar, a wonderful tool to use. It also, if you're dealing with crossfitters, it's not going to translate to literally anything else besides maybe some loaded carries, heavy carries, sandbag carries, jerry can carries, things like that. But it's not going to transfer over into strength for Olympic lifts such as the clean and the snatch. So we want to really try and work and improve on that deadlift. So again, one final recap. What do we see? Deadlift, one of the best things we can do for low back pain. Improved kinesiophobia, just get rid of it all together. Improved strength, resilience, quality of life, everything there. This is the health lift, what it was normally known as back in the 20s, I believe. We have a conventional deadlift in which our stance is around hip width. Bars close underneath our shoelaces, hips above our knees, knees, hips above our knees, shoulders above our hips, and that really nice pattern there. We have that hybrid, we'll be slightly wider stance, and now our grip, instead of being outside our knees, goes inside our knees. and we are still driving with that same shoulder above hip, hip above knee position of our body. And then lastly at that sumo deadlift, that really wide stance that again allows us to reduce the distance that bar has to travel so we can do more load typically. the hips are still above the knees, the shoulders are still above the hips, we have a much more vertical torso, and we are driving straight from the ground, standing tall with it. Sumo deadlift, hybrid deadlift, conventional deadlift, and special shout out to the trap bar deadlift as well. So there's a deadlift that anybody can do, we should be deadlifting in the clinic with our athletes, especially if you're dealing with fitness athletes and crossfitters, they're gonna deadlift, so be really good at coaching it, understanding these different variations that they can use to train in different ways. If that's just a little bit, and you're like, oh, I want to learn a little bit more, please, please, please join us on the road. We are not traveling a whole lot in August and July, but starting in September, we are on the road right away. 7th and 8th, we are in Austin, Texas with Fitness Athlete Live. Then the 14th and 15th of September, we are in Longmont, Colorado. And then the 28th and 29th, we are back in Texas, in Springs, Texas, which I believe is down on the coast near Houston, I could be completely wrong, so I apologize for anyone from Springs, Texas if I got that wrong, but please come check us out, we're on the road. If you want to see, learn a lot more, be able to dive into it a lot more, into the science of everything a lot more, the level one, the fitness athlete level one starts back up on July 29th, so that'll be in about three weeks. We're starting up our next cohort of the CMFA L1. And then the CMFA L2, if that's the one course you are waiting to finish up to get your CMFA certification, that starts up on September 3rd. That course is only twice a year. That course always sells out. So please, if you're thinking about getting your CMFA cert and you want to take that L2, dive into all things programming, movement modification, some business aspects, high-level skill, gymnastics, and Olympic weightlifting, Sign up for that one on the PT on ICE website. CMFA L2 starts up September 3rd, CMFA L1 July 29th, and we are on the road in Texas on the 28th and 29th and the 7th and 8th of September, and then out in Colorado on the 14th and 15th. Gang, thanks so much for tuning in this morning. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will catch you Monday on the PT on ICE Daily Show.

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