Why Beginners Should Sumo Deadlift
Mr. Petch showing how it’s done.
If there’s one movement everybody needs to be doing, it’s the hip hinge. What’s the hip hinge? Glad you asked. It’s just a movement that involves keeping a straight back, bending the hips a lot and the knees just a bit or only somewhat. When you bend both the hips and the knees a lot, it’s called a squat. Hip hinges are especially important because pretty much everybody has relatively backside from all that sitting they do and nothing strengthens it quite like hinge movements. If you turn around and look at your butt in the mirror and it’s flat like a pancake, you, my friend, are in desperate need of some hip hinging. If you turn to the side, look in the mirror, and see that your sticks out like it does on Donald Duck, then you need to start doing some hinging exercises ASAP. Donald Duck is a lovely fellow, but you shouldn’t consider him a role model for posture.
The question then becomes “What exercise should I do?” Well, dear reader, my go-to exercise is the sumo deadlift. Some of you may be crying “Heresy! The conventional deadlift is much better.” And my reply would be “For you.” There are only two groups of people who need to conventional deadlift: Olympic lifters and strongmen. If you’re not one of those, conventional deadlifts are optional. There are several reasons I start people out with the sumo deadlift.
1. It’s more intuitive. Seriously, this is actually my biggest reason for it. I’ve been coaching for a while now and something I’ve noticed is that people just “get” the sumo deadlift better than conventional. If you’ve never really lifted weights before, you’ve almost certainly picked something up off the floor. You walk up to it with your feet on either side of the thing, bend at your hips pushing your butt back, grab the thing with your arms inside your legs, and stand up. Sumo deadlifting is basically that. Yes, there’s a bit more to it, but even that’s pretty intuitive (keep your chest up, squeezing your butt cheeks together.) Why waste time learning a movement when you can use a different one that gives pretty much all the same benefits? Pick the simpler to learn variation and go kick some ass with it.
2. It’s more spine-friendly. This is related to the first point, but definitely deserves its own explanation. If you’re somebody who has ever had back pain, you’ll be wanting to avoid the agony as much as possible. One of the things that seems to bother people’s backs is bending over far with a heavy thing. The sumo deadlift avoids this. By putting the feet wider, your hips are closer to the bar and you don’t have to bend over as far. This lets you keep your spine more straight up and down. This more vertical spine position is gentler on the low back and puts more of the work onto your legs. If your back has a history of aches and pains, this is the lift for you to try out.
3. The hardest part is getting it off the floor. For most people I’ve talked to, getting the bar off the floor is the hardest part of the sumo deadlift. This is because your hips are farthest from the bar, which puts you at the biggest mechanical disadvantage. What do I mean by mechanical disadvantage? Try this. Take a dumbbell (25lbs should do the job) and hold it close to your chest with one hand. Pretty easy, right? Now, straighten your arm in front of you. Unless you’re insanely strong, you probably couldn’t even get your arm straight before it started falling. By putting the weight farther away from the thing doing the work (your shoulder) you’ve made it harder. The same is true for the start of the sumo deadlift. Your hips start farthest away and as you lift the weight, they get closer to the bar, putting you at more of an advantage. You might be wondering what’s so great about that. Well, it means that if the weight is too heavy, you’re unlikely to hurt yourself because you won’t even be able to get it off the floor. Good luck dropping something on yourself that hasn’t left the ground.
4. It helps stretch the hips. Any time I can sneak stretching in the back door, I do. I find it boring, you find it boring. Sadly, it’s like eating vegetables: a necessary evil. Most people spend time in the same, legs close together tucked under themselves position all day. Doing that, they slowly lose the ability to be able to move themselves in space any other way. This is a big problem because if you have no strength in a position, then if you’re put into that position, you’re more likely to get injured. Sumo deadlifting is how you can get some strength in the feet far apart position. When you first start doing it, you’ll feel a nice stretch in your groin and the insides of your thighs (the inside thigh muscle is called your adductor magnus, by the way.) I’ve worked with some people whose hip and back pain went away because, for the first time, they were stretching and opening their hips a bit.
Whether you’re trying to eliminate pancake butt, stop imitating a certain cartoon bird, or just trying to build a stronger booty and body, the sumo deadlift is a great choice especially if your back isn’t the healthiest in the world. It’s simple, brutally effective, and looks badass. Get in there and give it a shot. What do you have to lose besides your flat tushy?
