This video provides a detailed breakdown of the Sumo deadlift technique, emphasizing that proper setup and execution are crucial for maximizing strength and efficiency, rather than relying on brute force.
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hold up before we look at this we first
need to look at that [Music]
[Music]
howdy howdy welcome back to the channel
if you are new here my name is Natalie
and I am a 57 kilo world champion
powerlifter as well as a coach so today
I'm going to talk about the deadlift now
specifically we're gonna do the single
deadlift because that's what I get the
host questions on and what I lift in
competition so back back in the day back
in 2020 I hit my first three times
bodyweight pool at 375 pounds at 125
volume eight and most recently back in
June I hit a 496 deadlift at 123 pounds
which was a PR as well as the first four
times bodyweight pool that I've done now
with that being said uh I really enjoy
Sumo Devils I think it's a lot of fun
but Sumo is definitely very technical
there is no muscling the weight up
either you're going to set up well and
pull the lift or it's not going to move
off the ground so my goal of today's
video is kind of show you guys how to do
the Samoa deadlift and break it down for
you everyone is built different I've
gotten Jamal Browns and despite what you
may think on Instagram I am also not 6'4
so like like I said Zulu is going to
look different for everyone another
example would be looking at people's
back during small deadlift I have a
rounded back a more compressed slash
collapsed rib cage position and I'm
naturally grounded from the start there
are people who have beautiful flat back
deadlifts they have much longer arms
than me and can just pretty much grab
the bar and go and it looks great so
with differences aside I think there are
four main things that we can do to break
down the similar devil and pretty
applicable to everyone whether you are a
lightweight heavyweight short tall
orange blue I got some deadlift tips
okay so the four biggest things to get a
bigger deadlift that I'm going to cover
is going to be one reaching down to the
bar two foot position and foot angle
both matter three the slack pool and
then for the all-elusive wedge you may
notice that all these things are part of
the start and setup and that's because
they're the most important thing they
start in the setup for the Sumo deadlift
there's like no must lead it up if you
aren't gonna set up you aren't going to
get the deadlift I like I've learned
that lesson the hard way you have to
have a standard start position that you
always do get locked in so no matter if
you're doing 154 pounds or you're doing
five to 600 700 pounds whatever your
depth of setup it needs to look the
exact same from warm-ups to end so the
goal of this video is to show you guys
how to get that set up and then the rest
the actual pooling of it should be easy
after you get the start position so
without further Ado let's go to the Doom
so here we are in the gym we're going to
we're going to talk about is foot
positioning all right now you may see
many different Sumo poolers do a close
froggy stance deadlift they may do a
really really wide toes out to the max
where the range of motion is like one
inch to lock out now all those are good
for whatever individual lifter but for
the person who's trying to figure out
their best Sumo deadlift stance and foot
angle is probably not gonna be the best
place to start instead we want to do
something kind of in the middle between
those two froggy stance or extreme Sumo
deadlifters so first things first go
ahead and start somewhere in the middle
between the center knurling and the
plates so if you just take a step to
your left and step to your right you're
probably halfway there and you have a
nice Sumo stance the Sumo stance you
feel comfortable on your hips if you
come down and feel kind of Pinchy maybe
scoot them out a little bit more if they
feel like they're hurting and too
unstable then probably bring them in so
really find The Stance that's best for
you I don't want to spend too much time
on it instead I want to look at your
foot angle so I'm setting up how I
normally would and you can notice that
my feet are much more turned out versus
straightforwards or all the way turned
out to determine the best foot angle for
you you want to see where your knees
naturally travel over your toes so say I
put my feet
more pointed forwards and I'm coming
down you can already see how my knees
are insanely uncomfortable so if I turn
them too far out the opposite effects is
going to happen I'm going to come down
and then my knees are going to want to
cave in when I come off the floor
because again my hips simply cannot open
up that wide so we're looking at toe position
position
you really want to focus on pushing your
knees where they naturally can push out
over your toes and make like a nice
little house between you and the floor
so if my knees are over my toes
that's gonna be a super easy and
efficient pool so that is step one foot
position and it's all about finding the
spot where your knees comfortably can go
over your toes so if your toes are too
far in your knees probably not feel the
best too far out your knees are probably
going to come in like that so again I
recommend starting with a moderate
probably toe angle then as you get more
advanced you can kind of go up more play
in but a good starting position is
figuring out where your knees are going
to go best over your toes [Music]
[Music]
okay so step one completed we figured
out a foot slash toe angle that feels
comfortable with our body our knees are
going to line up over our toes don't
know how to get our feet set up now step
two is going to be one of the most
important steps and that is reaching
down to get to the bar now if you want a
very efficient small pool ideally you'll
be able to reach down to the bar and get
into your position as quickly as
efficiently as possible now some people
misinterpret this and they reach down to
the bar and pull like all hell to get to
it as an example I used to do this all
the time and I still do if I rush it too
much be at the top and they like oh no
they need to grab the bar and pull it so they'll
they'll
just go ahead and York that bad boy up
first mistake is if you are going too
fast down to grab the bar because Sumo
is super technical so you really don't
want to go super fast when you get to
the bar instead you want to control
every single aspect from top down when
you're saying up to do a similar
deadlift now this is one of the most
important steps in the Sumo deadlift
because how you get to the bar
determines how you actually are going to
pull it's studying your hips it's saying
your shoulders in relation to the bar as
well as how are you going to be able to
pull the slack so this is very important
part of the deadlift and I think one
that most people tend to rush maybe they
just want to get to the bar to yank that
bad boy up but ideally you want to take
your time with this step set up to the
bar go ahead and get your feet like
normal as we discussed in step one if
you're standing up in the setup to get
to the barbell you are going to first
hinge so you are slightly over the bar
we want a forward lean if we start with
our shoulders too far back we're not
going to be able to get a really great
slack pool unless we were built with
incredibly long arms so we want to First hinge
hinge
then we want to bend the knees and two
we can get to the bar and then we want
to just pull until we can grab it and
then set our slack and pull like normal
so there's a couple different things
going on as we hinge our shoulders need
to be over the bar and then as we Bend
Our Knees Down you can notice that my
kind of rear delts are over the top of
the bar and the bars over the top of my
foot so everything is in line second
thing is you may have noticed when I
pulled the slack my shoulders came back
and that's what is actually pulling the
slat is that rotation of my hips getting set
set
and then you can see that my shoulders
are pretty much in line with the bar
over the foot
a common mistake people make is that
they think similar deadlift since it is
a wider stance is a squat when this is
the opposite case we do not want to
squat the weight we are wedging the
weight like a beautiful gazelle so we do
not want to squat down to the Simo deadlift
deadlift
this would look something like this
where we aren't hinging at the start and
we are just kind of squatting down way
too deep our hips are way too low and we
are just kind of pulling the bar and
hoping that maybe we can push through
our quads and squat it up or perhaps we are
are
hinging the entire amount and starting
with a too high of a hip height where we
can't get any power and we're putting
the entire load in our lower back now
that is not ideal as soon as you start
you can notice
as I Tempo the bar back down
my hip height
is never moving
from each different rep that I'm doing
my start position is locked in if I am
temporing the rep down my hips end
exactly where I start so therefore we
know that I must have the right starting
hip pipes so that's step number two
setting up to the bar hinge
squat down until he can reach the bar
then go into your slack and wedge pool [Music]
all right so step three is going to be
the slack pool that's right baby the
next step is going to be actually
starting to lift the tension out of the
bar when people say slack it really
means that we are starting to get any of
the tension in here out before we start
our pool because if we have any tension
left in the bar that we haven't
accounted for the second we actually
start pulling what's it going to do it's
going to pull us forwards out of position
position
and slightly make the pool a little bit
harder and get our positioning off so we
want to start the deadlift slack out
because as soon as we have to slack out
we can start the actual pool and know
that there's nothing else we need to
account for besides finishing the lift
so slack pool is going to come from when
we set our hips after we've reached the bar
bar
you can almost hear it I'm pulling up as
I'm bringing my hips down
as my torso is coming back my chest is
coming up
if you listen you can hear that kind of Slack
I could sit there and do that all day so
I'd prefer not to that rotation
of your torso coming up and your hips
sitting back down just a little bit is
what's pulling the slack out of the bar
we're coming down
and that slightly forward position slack
is coming out
and this is super lightweight so I can
just come down
and pretty much pull the slack out
so that is the slack pool all that is
it's just you finalizing your hip
position and starting to pull your chest
up so you're pulling up on the bar your
chest is coming up because you have to
have your chest up to lock out
do not force an overly upright chest
position at start to think you can cheat
and kind of get that slack pull out
earlier you really want to focus on
being a little bit over the bar before
you start [Music]
[Music]
all right now we've covered the foot
position the reaching down to the bar
and now we've covered the slack full so
what's left
that's right baby the all-elusive wedge
you might be asking yourself is we're
doing like an orange slice is it a pie
wedge what is it you are simply wedging
your hips forward into the bar AKA
pushing your hips forwards as your chest
is coming back and that angle
angle
is a wedge so how do we create said
wedge that's going to come from pulling
the slack out which we've already
covered and pushing the hips through to
lock out the deadlift I promise it'll
make more sense when we show what a
wedge isn't when you see what a wedge
actually is
all right as an example
here is a deadlift with a wedge meaning
I am purposefully pushing my hips
forwards after I pulled the slack off
the ground and I'm pushing my hips
forward to go ahead and lock out the deadlift
deadlift foreign
done more than two reps I need to take a
break so notice the main difference
there is that my hips are pretty
stagnant in the back they aren't helping
me out they're not doing much to be
honest they are back there not actively
pushing forwards not being able to push
my hips through to be in a position to
lock out that then lift money is locked
hips through shoulders are back those
are the criteria to really lock out a
deadlift this is probably the hardest
part for most people to effectively do
when dead lifting so
foot pushing this way other foot pushing
this way
then we're going to have
our hips coming forwards knees locked
in that position of
pulling your hips forwards putting
tension into the bar
all right so those are all four steps of
creating an effective Sumo deadlift and
it stems from the start so putting it
all together we have the slow reaches
the bar we have the foot angle we have
the slack pool in the wedge so all
all right
and it's as efficient as possible I'm
not lagging with my hips and letting my
knees come in and not really over my
toes I'm not too far out and just
pulling back and not wedging forwards
I am simply making the deadlift as easy
as possible for me because I'm lazy so
and that's it now you may be saying well
of course it's going to look good
because it's easy weight so here's some
footage where I have the same technique
[Music]
[Music]
last thing that I want to mention here
is bracing I didn't want to go into
depth on it today but as you see I do
take my brace before I get to the bar
you can brace before you get to the bar
or as you pull your slack whichever is
easier but do make sure you are taking a
big belly breath okay so those were the
four biggest things to do and to focus
on when you are doing Sumo deadlift the
reaching out to the bar the foot angle
the slack pool in the wedge they all go
together cohesive it should be one
cohesive movement and just a couple
things to think about focus on really
taking your time with the setup and
getting a new routine of how you
approach the bar every single time and I
promise these things so we'll click
together and it'll be great if you
follow me for a long time on Instagram
you've probably seen my deadlift go through
through
um some changes and I don't want to jump
too far into those changes right now but
one of the biggest things that I changed
was just taking away that crazy Dynamic
start I still start dynamically I still
get super pumped up and I want to grab
the bar just rip it but I've been forced
to kind of slow down with my Approach a
little bit especially for my coach Steve
who keeps being checked and make sure
that I'm doing all the right thing I
used to like come down and almost do a
shimmy and shake the bar and lose all my
positioning right where I try to lock in
my hips but then I was actually throwing
myself a weight distribution was like
kind of weird and it was just too
aggressive for the technicality of sumo
devlers because I could do that up to a
certain point probably around 450 pounds
and then anything north of that I just
was not consistent with and we either
have a really really great day where I
was strong can muscle up the weights or
I just sucked and not be able to lock
out the lift or get it off the floor
like I said if you get your setup locked
in started you got a good slack pool
your foot position feels good your hips
feel good your knees feel good
everything's locked and loaded you're
gonna have a great deadlift day so take
your time setting up is my biggest
takeaway of this video because
it's not a race
just take your time one more thing thank
you guys so much for 1 000 Subs I
started this channel basically almost a
year ago just to have fun and make
content that made me laugh so a thousand
of you following along that's awesome um
hopefully I'll be able to get out some
some a mix of goofy content uh a helpful
content for you guys thank you guys so
much for watching do not forget to like
And subscribe if you've not already
subscribed and I'll see you guys later bye
bye [Music]
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