How to Train the Sumo Deadlift, When You Have Unfavorable Sumo Deadlift Levers
When you think of a fantastic sumo deadlifter, who/what do you think of?
Maybe you go straight to names: Belkin, Browner, personally I always think of Eric Lapointe.
Maybe you think of anthropometrics: long arms, shorter torsos, longer legs.
Maybe you go straight to being a hater and think: small ROM, easier (don’t be this person)
Well, I think by now, especially if you are indoctrinated into USAPL culture, there are a few program staples that might not work for EVERYONE but certainly yield more success than any other protocol when you are subjected to a lifter who has favorable levers for this particular lift.
They usually look like the following:
Higher reps. Think sets of 7-10. This has more to do with equating lack of ROM than anything, but by far has produced several phenomenal pullers.
Paused work. Now this actually is something I was at the onset of, I think initially people were programming it because “it’s hard”, but over time they found it was a tremendous patience cue for those who get off their quads too quick or tend to let their back take over. Nonetheless, it is a staple and sometimes amalgamated with the higher rep work.
Singles. This is not exclusive to the sumo deadlift for favorable levers, but you will notice the best sumo guys and girls usually will have some variation of a top single (paused or unpaused) and then higher rep backoff work.
Frequency. Very, very rarely will you find a gifted sumo leveraged lifter pull only one time a week. It will usually be twice a week.
So, what I am saying here, it is rather easy (I say that slightly hyperbolic) to program for people who are built for a certain lift. However, what do you do if they are NOT built for a certain lift?
At Team Hogan, I actually work with quite a few individuals who maybe don’t have perfect sumo leverage but still are unbelievably strong. As it turns out, there are multiple ways to address this situation that will all produce various levels of success.
Some of these reasons are rather straight-forward, but others are somewhat complex, more so in that they look like conventional style programming than sumo.
The first thing you should do, if presented, is see how someone moves. Sounds simple, but this alone can lead you to the solution without any other intervention!
Does the athlete have a, “wide-stance conventional pull”, where it is clear they are sequencing the pull incorrectly, if so, work on patience and a vertical push down into the floor and maybe adjusting technique alone can solve most of your problems, but what about our program design?
Well, if you are either:
Very short-armed
Have a very strong back, proportionately weaker quads but prefer a sumo stance
Find yourself favoring a more, “semi-sumo” stance where it is neither pure conventional, nor pure sumo
These principles can and should, at bare minimum, help you decide where to go in terms of designing your training to maximize your potential, WITH some caveats.
The following, maybe not necessarily in order, should be considered as a generalization if you fall into any one of these categories.
Less reps per set.
When you are not built well for the sumo deadlift, your sequencing is more hinge driven and you do not have that classic upright posture, generally speaking you will not fair well with higher rep sets. Of course, there are exceptions here and most of the time, if you equate for intensity, things will sort themselves out, but from experience, form breakdown is very high for these individuals when sets exceed, say, 5 reps. The though process here is you have less of an opportunity for form breakdown as if you are honest with your RPE, staying around the 6-8 range, you will reinforce “good positions”, without going into the deep water zone where we all tend to just muscle the weight up. Again, exceptions across the board, I can think of many people who do sets of 7 and above with this type of leverage but all of their sets are VERY submaximal, individual differences exist.
Proportionately higher intensity per set.
Now, this slightly contradicts what I just said in the previous point, but again, in general, if we are going to be using reps of 5 and below, the overall intensity will inherently be higher and closer to 1rm. So, all variables being equal, if we are using percentages here, most of the work this individual will do will fall in the 75% to 85% intensity zone, as opposed to their ideal-leveraged counterparts who can get away with loads that are around the 60-70% intensity zone.
Less specific frequency.
If you pull this style, I would wager that 80-90% of people can get away with pulling with their comp style once per week, pretty much indefinitely. That doesn’t mean you have to only pull on a bar one time a week, but you do not need the constant technical reinforcement or “light days”, that people who can handle the volume do AND progress from. This blends into point #4 in that the scheme should more than likely mimic conventional and less stereotypical sumo.
Mimic conventional-style principles.
Now we are getting into semantics here because what I am about to say is good for ALL lifters, not just the poor-sumo leveraged, but if you insist on pulling this way, you need to be strong and built for positions that conventional pullers will need to be strong in. You see, you can get away with not being jacked, per se, when you have favorable levers for sumo. There are some people who are borderline-skinny, who are pulling 4.5x bodyweight, which is not a bad thing, but it reinforces the point that it does not need to be the priority if you are blessed with these levers. This is purely, purely anecdotal, but I cannot think of a semi-sumo puller who is not incredibly jacked. Things like your barbell RDLs and stiff legged deads, your “bodybuilding” back work, will take you a lot further than doing solely deadlifts.
Switch to conventional and/or use conventional as your main assistance movement.
This is probably the hardest pill to swallow for some individuals. I will say, the old adage that conventional builds your sumo, really only applies to those who do not have the best leverages for the sumo pull and you could quickly see why this would be. Now, there are people with ideal sumo levers who ALSO have strong conventionals, but this is almost exclusively in spite of the fact and someone who is sumo pulling 700+, gets very little out of bringing their 585 conventional to 650. That’s at the highest level of course, if you are in year one, do both and get strong in every plane of movement. That said, if you are a semi-sumo individual keep heavy conventional in the rotation as if you have exhausted every other option and no matter what, you always breakdown in the same part of the lift, you can do all the accessory work and assistance movements you want, it will always be present and you’d be doing yourself a disservice to not explore a stance change. I have seen people from a far, try to force sumo for YEARS for reasons that are either ego-driven, pride-driven, or because they are under the guise that sumo is always easier, and stagnate their progress because of it. As mentioned, only switch if you have exhausted EVERY option, but in the same vein, this sport is about lifting the most weight, if you can lift more weight doing things differently, I would implore you to do that.
In conclusion, I have had a lot of success using these principles with people I have been fortunate enough to work with. I think most of the info these days, pertains to people who are “built for the lift”, and they matter to, but I wanted to give my people who have to rely on muscle and creativeness some love in the sense of how to attack their programming. It seems most of my training points fall back to the concepts of get jacked, good things will happen, and honestly, if you took nothing away from this article but that, I did my job!
To Utopia,
Erik