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Strength deadlift question

Wed, 03/03/2010 - 11:42am — reengleman

Only as it applies to the building of overall strength, which style, conventional or sumo, is superior?

Thanks to all who share.

Bob Engleman

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Wed, 03/03/2010 - 1:27pm — DrSquat
DrSquat's picture

Conventional

Conventional

Sat, 03/06/2010 - 6:33am — patrickt

Overall strength, hmm.. i

Overall strength, hmm.. i know that in my 20`s i used to do conventional DL because of my (relative to my lower body)stronger posterior chain and because thats what the college weightlifting team taught me. So does having a strong posterior chain give me more overall strength, i dunno, it sure helped me do confident power and full squat cleans.

After having stopped powerlifting for nearly a decade, i tried again with a conventional dead and had a few problems with my lower back and decided to try sumo, and did fairly well i suppose.

What exactly is your basis for overall strength in the deadlift, the greatest number of muscles used? The greatest use of the posterior chain muscles? I always thought the sumo was the more "all around balanced" style (in terms of legs and back)

Sat, 03/06/2010 - 9:51am — Kid Icarus

I think if you want big

I think if you want big numbers, go for sumo. If you want muscle development, go conventional.

Sat, 03/06/2010 - 4:45pm — Todd Wilson
Todd Wilson's picture

Conventional will have

Conventional will have greater transfer to other movements, sports movements & skills, and everyday life.

Sat, 03/06/2010 - 10:32pm — Mutsanah

Agreed - Conventional for

Agreed - Conventional for useful strength - sumo for optimal biomechanics/leverage for the shorter lifter, medium arms, medium torso.

I moved my conventional DL from 225 to 505 and gained over 50lbs of what I think is pretty useful mass.

Sun, 03/07/2010 - 10:14am — Kenny Croxdale

Big numbers???

Kid,

Pulling sumo does not insure pulling more in the deadlift. How do you come up with this stuff?

Kenny Croxdale

I guarantee it will never work if you never try it.

Mon, 03/08/2010 - 6:18am — Kid Icarus

How did "we". Mutsanah

How did "we". Mutsanah agreed with me. Probably 2 dozen would too.

And his answer is right - its about leverage.

Mon, 03/08/2010 - 8:52am — Kenny Croxdale

Playing to your strength.

Kid,

It is about playing to your strength. Some lifters are capable of deadlifting more using a conventional, some with the a sumo deadlift.

"Probably 2 dozen would too."

I think you mean two dozen clones of you would "probably agree." However, one of the clones might not...since probably doesn't connotate 100% certainty.

Kid, you never fail to make my day. Smiling

I still didn't get the book from you. You wrote one, right?

Kenny Croxdale

I guarantee it will never work if you never try it.

Mon, 03/08/2010 - 9:30am — Kid Icarus

1. I said use a sumo stance

1. I said use a sumo stance for bigger numbers as a general recommendation. You have better leverage and can lift more. Good for you on finding exceptions to the rule.

2. Why are you accusing me of having clones right out of the blue?

Lets hear it from everyone else then (unless they're all clones of me). Who here thinks that, as a general rule, sumo's will give you bigger numbers?

3. I sent you the book twice. Either your email is filled to capacity and you should delete some older emails, its going into your spam folder, or you did get it and you're saying you didn't.

Its in my "sent" folder with your email address at the top. I'll take a screen shot of that and post you the link if you want.

Mon, 03/08/2010 - 10:51am — Mutsanah

I lift 10% more conventional

I lift 10% more conventional than sumo. Probably because I'm built like an orangutan, much longer arms, long legs, short torso. Standard sumo not comfortable for me to do with max weights, semi sumo is good and I can lift about as much as conventional.

Mon, 03/08/2010 - 2:35pm — MarcusWild

Almost every deadlift over

Almost every deadlift over 900 lbs was done conventional. There's some Russian and Ed Coan that have done it sumo. Everyone else is conventional.

www.wildirongym.com
www.tinyurl.com/WildIron

Mon, 03/08/2010 - 5:04pm — Nick Hinde

Sumo vs Conventional

Depends entirely on leverage / biomechanics.

Different exercises, really. I think that the ONLY reason someone might pull sumo was to gain extra numbers on their deadlift.
That said, for MOST people I think the conventional will still give better numbers.

I'm conventional and will stay that way. Long legs.

Kid, have you even tried the sumo deadlift? Or trained with anyone who has? It takes a while to learn the lift.

Here is an interesting article.
http://www.powerpage.net/deadlift.html

Kenny, any more ideas about the sumo and conventional? I'd be interested to hear further comments. Are you conventional?

RDC used to post on this forum occasionally. Mr Crain, please chip in if you're lurking anywhere.

Nick

Mon, 03/08/2010 - 10:26pm — Mutsanah

Kid Icarus wrote: How did

Kid Icarus wrote:

How did "we". Mutsanah agreed with me. Probably 2 dozen would too.

And his answer is right - its about leverage.

I did agree? Read post again, agreed that sumo better for certain lifters. I lift much more conventional.

Tue, 03/09/2010 - 12:33pm — Yukon

I go with Kenny on this. I

I go with Kenny on this. I pull much more conventional than sumo. Actually spent a full year trying to get my sumo number up, because it "looks" like it should be more efficient when you do it right. After the year was up, I still pulled more conventional. I think its a personal thing, based on how your body is built.

As it applies to overall strength, i would go with conventional as well.

Wed, 03/31/2010 - 5:58pm — Luidl

Toss Up

Neither really. It's just that sumo emphasizes more hip and glute. It's best to switch back and forth for full development, although give either exercise about six weeks at a time to achieve the best results.