 Let's discuss two major, very popular deadlifting variations today. The conventional deadlift, where my feet are a little bit closer while I'm picking a bar up off the ground. And the sumo deadlift, where my feet are a little bit wider, and I can kind of squat down like a sumo person, like a wrestler, there we go. So biggest differences. I need more pelvic control and mobility, mobility to deadlift with my feet a little bit closer together, okay? What's going on there? So I need more hip flexion, because the shape of my hip joint allows my knee to come up more when it's out here. You see how it's up a little bit higher? That wasn't just a parlor trick. I'm going to try to bring it in, and it's going to lower, okay? So that's just because of the shape of the hip joint, right? And if I think about this motion, that's kind of what this is. That's what a more conventional deadlift stance is. And so a lot of people are going to find it difficult to get into a conventional deadlift without compromising their back position. So for a lot of new people, when I'm teaching a hip hinge, a more sumo stance makes a lot of sense, right? If they want to learn how to deadlift from the ground up, a sumo stance is going to get them there quicker and more safely, just because it's more comfortable. I do like to train people in the conventional stance, and maybe what you do is you start with a sumo, and then you move to an RDL in a more conventional stance. That makes a lot of sense to me. Other things, I might just want to try my luck. Start in a conventional stance. I'm going to start from the top down generally, and I'm going to teach them how to load their hamstrings first, just like this. And then eventually I'm going to say, okay, now bend your knees and get down to the ground. Good. Just a slight bend, right? Not too much. Do this thing, which a lot of people will do, and then it just looks like a wet ragdoll trying to bend over. So the biggest thing is just the mobility, right? Mobility allows me here. Some people will have issues getting into a sumo stance, right? So if my hips are retroverted, I'm going to feel pretty good out here, and I might actually need to be out here. But if my hips are antiverted, I'm going to have a lot of motion this way, but I'm not going to be able to get my feet out very far. I'm definitely not going to be able to do something like this, right? So these people have a lot of motion this way, which is kind of like this way, and they don't have a lot of motion this way, which is kind of like this way, right? So you don't have to know if this person is antiverted or retroverted or the degrees of motion within their hip. What you do have to do is notice if they can get it, and if they can't get it, to give them something else, okay? So that's the big thing. If you're looking at yourself like, let's say you're 23 years old, and you want to learn how to power lift, and you looked up something online, maybe some 5x5 program, maybe you looked up some videos online that aren't mine, and you said, okay, a Sumo deadlift is going to make me stronger, so I'm going to do a Sumo deadlift. But you're someone with antiverted hips, and you find it really difficult to get out into this position. Don't force yourself there. You're not going to be stronger there. You're not going to keep training there, right? So try to, again, every day, look at yourself very objectively, try not to fall into your biases, try not to fall into any confirmation bias or overconfidence bias that you know what you're talking about. None of us know what we're talking about, and we need to realize that, and realize that the hard way plenty of times, right? So that's the big differences between the conventional deadlift and the Sumo deadlift. Big things are hip mobility. Some people are stronger here, some people are stronger here. Sometimes you're stronger here just because you're not used to pulling that way. I think a lot of people do really well here in a Sumo deadlift, especially if you have some history of low back issues, you're probably going to do pretty well here. Your deadlift generally looks a lot prettier if you're doing it this way. But I will say, you know, I feel really comfortable in my hip here, but when I do Sumo deadlifts, I get the weirdest, weirdest knee pain. So I don't like Sumo deadlifting. I don't feel like I can really load my legs quite as much. And maybe that's because I'm just pretty flexible, right? And I need a little bit of extra stretch in all my muscles to get good leg drive from that. Just a little anecdote, my own little anecdote. Try to experiment again. Put your biases aside. Try not to use too much weight, right? Let's not let ego get ahead of us. Let's make sure we, you know, evaluate ourselves very objectively and find out what works for you.