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Conventional Deadlift vs Sumo Deadlift

After the power meet and pulling 440 (even though I got red-lighted) my lower back was pretty sore. Not hurt sore, but max-effort, on-the-edge-of-being-strained muscles  sore. I’ve had this before when dead lifting really heavy (for me) weight.

The downside is that it takes a week or so to recover, and in the mean time my lower back tires really quickly. So after the meet, I didn’t go back to the gym until Thursday, and I did a very light workout, being especially careful of my back.

After failing to pull 440 (hey, I got it up even if the judges red lighted me), and having the sore back, I did some research into the Sumo version of the deadlift, primarily because it’s supposed to be easier on the back. Also, while at the meet, I saw a guy weighing only 174 pull 505 using sumo. He got red-lighted for hitching, but he got it off the floor and locked out. Pervious to that, his biggest pull was 405! Imagine if he actually started powerlifting training…. 

Anyway, since I’ve done the work, I thought I’d share.

Traditional Deadlift

The traditional deadlift is with your legs shoulder-width apart (or slightly closer), feet pointed forward,  and your arms outside your legs. If you’ve never deadlifted before, you should probably start with traditional style. The traditional style involved the back much more than the sumo style, as much as 50% more, so if you have back problems, be careful.

Traditional seems to be more forgiving of sloppiness, in that I think there’s a wider range of error before you get so out of the groove the lift fails. It’s a lot easier to get the weight going since the beginning of the motion is more explosive. Most conventional deadlift hit their sticking spot around the knees.

When you see lifted going heavy with traditional, they almost always end up rounding their back.

Of note: most of the big deadlift records were set by power lifters pulling traditional style.

Sumo Deadlift

The sumo style deadlift is done with the feet wide apart and turned out and your arms hanging down to grip the bar between your legs. When I say wide, I mean wide, with the shins all the way out to the lines on the bar, so far you have to be careful setting the bar down that the weights don’t land on your feet!

You start in a much more upright position, so the sumo deadlift puts much less stress on the lower back, but more on the hips, glutes and hamstrings. It also requires a lot more flexibility in these muscles to be able to get into the starting postion.

Because your legs are so wide-spread, the bar has less distance to travel, in theory allowing you to lift more weight because you’re doing less work:

• Force = Mass x Acceleration
• Work = Force x Distance

So while both forms require the smae amount of force, sumo requires less work. Whether or not that really matters, I dunno. Maybe in terms of energy used, in that you might have more left over for further attempts.

So Which is Better?

Like most questions related to lifting, the answer is it depends. Are you tall or short? Longs arms? How long is your torso? Your legs? Have you tried both style? Which one feels more natural? With which one can you pull more weight?

There are great powerlifters who do sumo and great powerlifters that do conventional. You’ll just have to experiment to see which style works best for you.

So far…

I’ve done sumo style last two workouts and it does take some getting used to. It requires a lot more flexibility in the groin and hamstrings, so I have to warm up a bit better. It definitely requires more focus to keep form than traditional.

Today I did:

• 135×5 (1 set)
• 225×5 (1 set)
• 320×5 (3 sets)

This is about the same poundages I used while training conventional, so no verdict yet on whether or not I’ll ultimately be able to pull more weight. Time will tell!

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