what's up guys this is Joe Bennett Josh Vogel with redcon1 we were discussing
some different variations for deadlifts and where they may or may not have
application
there's a lot of questions about what is the difference between conventional and
a sumo deadlift now so first you have to ask yourself what is the reason that
you're doing deadlifts so if you're looking for a lot of overall body
development so if you're really looking for a pretty balanced exercise for
glutes for hams for quads conventional deadlifts are great for that if you're
looking at something that's going to have a little bit more emphasis on that
adduction motion and the muscles that are involved a little bit less on glutes
a little bit less on the hamstrings and the knee extensors the quads sumo
deadlift is gonna be a little bit better of a fit so if we watch Josh go first
with a conventional deadlift we'll see if we look at he stops right there for a
second we just look at the joints involved again he's got a decent amount
of knee flexion so he's got just short of 90 degrees going on the knee that's
why your quads are essentially gonna do a lot of work he's in the very hip
flexion hip flex position so he's gonna be doing a lot of glutes a lot of hams
and if he just stands up from there that's kind of what I mean where it's
somewhere if you look at that position that you just compared to a squat it's
kind of like almost like a high or very hip dominance squat
that's why generally people can deadlift a little bit more weight than they can
squat so if he goes into a sumo stance again if we look at those same joints
involved as he drops down to that position you can see his knees aren't
bent quite as much he's not quite and his hip flex position and he's a little
bit more of an opened up position there so obviously he has a lot more range of
motion occurring he's in a lot more of a abducted position with his hips and
again he's got a little bit a less of pure knee extension a little bit less of
pure hip extension so again it comes to one of those things from a hypertrophy
standpoint from an aesthetic standpoint just kind of know what muscles your
training and adjust accordingly if your goal is more of a powerlifting
standpoint there's a couple more factors that go into it and the best advice I
can give is if you're really trying to just move as much weight as possible you
might want to spend a little bit time of doing both and you're just gonna find
out pretty quick which one might be a better fit for you
moving on to a stiff leg or an RDL I'm just going to call them the same thing
right now for convenience sake so really the big difference with a
stiff leg or an RDL-type motion as opposed to a conventional deadlift is
the knee is staying fixed so whether it's technically a true stiff leg or
maybe an RDL and has a slight Bend you know for for the training purposes
doesn't make a massive difference that's really the difference though is all of
the motion is going to be coming from the hip so again from a muscularity
standpoint what's the big difference going to be well your hamstring because
it crosses your knee and that knees being straighter and it crosses your hip
as well to your hamstring is going to hit a fully lengthened position before
your glutes do so it can be an exercise that's great too biased your hamstrings
glutes are always still going to be involved so anytime you're extending at
the hip it's definitely conjoint effort between the glutes the hamstrings and
even a little bit of abductors but if you're looking to bias more hamstrings
over gluts then rdls can be a great option josh is going to give a little
demo here so a thing same as with any deadlift once you get to the start
position you want your spine and back musculature lock in stone so you don't
want any spinal flexion or extension you want to think all motion of hips a great
cue here is hips back and again depending on what you have a hard time
managing your knees like I'll just tell Josh keep your knees locked because
wherever you set the knees whether they're truly straight or with a slight
Bend you just don't want them moving and so obviously the other big difference
between this and the conventional deadlift is your quads are pretty much
not involved at all whatsoever so with a conventional deadlift even the sumo
squat there's a good degree of the knee flexion extension involved so quads are
involved a lot this is going to be purely a hip exercise and again if
anything it might bias your hamstring a little bit more than your glutes and
same with every deadlift all of your back musculature are still involved we're
more in the secondary kind of stabilizing rail just keeping your spine
from folding into that Flex position
so last deadlift variation we're gonna have here is a trap bar deadlift so
really the big difference here is you take away the fact that you have a bar
limiting how far forward your shins can go so basically no matter who you are
when you're dead lifting your shins and knees at some point in time can't go
through that bar that you're holding especially with enough weight so the big
difference with a trap bar is it allows your knees and shins to go as far
forward as you want so basically it just makes it more knee dominant meaning it's
more quad dominant so I always say a trap bar deadlift for most people is
gonna be somewhere between a conventional deadlift and a squat so if
you watch when josh goes you can basically see when he stops in that
bottom position his knee isn't much more far forward his shin is farther forward
if you add a bar here basically be going right through his lower leg so it's a
position he's physically not capable of getting in with a conventional deadift and
when he does it with a trap bar instead it's gonna be a lot more knee dominant
which is also going to be a lot more upright so I really put this kind of in
more of the category of it's a lower body exercise yes your upper back is
still involved to a certain degree stabilizing but because your torso isn't
so much more of an upright position that back musculature is not taking as much
of the load more knee dominant more quad and again almost completely a lower body
exercise as opposed to even involving that upper back warrant
wrapping up all of the deadlift variations one is not better than the
other as you can see depending on the goal from a muscularity standpoint from
an aesthetic standpoint just make sure you know what your goal is and take your
exercise accordingly and again from a strength standpoint it's one of those
things where in my opinion one is not definitively better than the other the
best advice I could give is to try them both for a pretty considerable period of
time because there's a skill component as well too when trying a new variation
and from there decide which one's gonna be better to move more weight again if
that's your sport if your goal is to be a power lifter or just to see how much
weight you can lift that's also a little bit of that exercise selection as well
so again Josh Vogel here Joe Bennett with redcon1 until next time