 Hey, what's up? Sumo day, Sumo deadlift, how does Sumo deadlift? My second Sumo deadlift in six months. I'm gonna smash big weights. If you want Sumo deadlift tips, stay tuned. Give this thing a thumbs up. We're digging in. We're at two plates, and we're just gonna keep chipping. What's your first tip for us? I think the biggest thing overall is for people to stop focusing on other lifters and cues and start to feel sensation. Something I do, and we've done another video on it, is like kind of a control these centric with a lot of my reps. Because it kind of puts you in a place and you'll feel your starting position better, which is obviously all that matters here. Like starting position, how you start, how you're gonna finish. It's a little bit different than the other lifts where we're starting from a static and we're starting from the ground right. We have a concentric, a way up only, not a way down, like a squat or a bench. So the starting position's gonna matter most. I hear a lot of people talk about like wedging and pulling the slack. And all these are like terms and cues. But if you don't have the right sensation for them, you didn't miss that RPE nine because your wedging was off. You missed that RPE nine because you weren't feeling the right way or that cue doesn't connect with you, which is fine. Those are just like two cues that everyone uses. Doesn't mean it's working in your brain. With wedging itself and pulling the slack which are similar, right? Slack typically people are talking about the bar. We're talking about the external and getting all the slack out of our arms using these ropes and getting tension into the bar. So if you're watching from the side, you see like arms are straight, I can do all this. But as soon as I start to move, we get it out of the bar too, right? So now things are moving. The opposite, the wedging. I actually think people think of it wrong where we're getting our hips to the proper height and also getting your hips close to the bar, which is true, but that also just in relation to having your hips way back. I actually never have once thought about getting my hips close to the bar and it's not a cue I use often because I think most people, when they do that, they'll tend to curl their hip. A lot of us think of our hips up here, you know? We're like, when we're talking about our hips, we're talking here. So if you say get close to the bar, people automatically kind of go like this, you know, I don't know if it's an evolution fertility thing. So everyone's thinking right here, but when you want your hips to the bar, close to the bar, it's actually here and this stays neutral and packed. It's not here, but most people do this and now we're pulling from here. Once you get above 90%, a couple people do it and get away with it, but now I have to uncurl this under load to lock it out. Other than if I'm here and I just get my hips closer with that slack out, now all I have to do is stand up. I'm already locked out. Abby, even who's very good lifter, commented on how my quad snaps so quick. It's because once I snap my quads, when I get to the sumo to my knee, it's locked out. It's already done and I got a long range. I'm locking up here by my little two inch peepee. I'm locking way the fuck up here. If I was locking out down here, it'd be over for you, fellas, because I'm already so locked in when I'm here and my shit does look a little bit more of a conventional but that's just that I got stubby arms, long torso, stubby thighs, so I can't get here. It's literally impossible because I can't get to the bar, right? But if you're all packed in, you pull that slack out. Yeah, I'm kind of getting my hips close to the bar but I'm also just thinking to get my hips in the right spot where I feel this tension, the sensation again. And I'm just gonna snap. And again, once I snap my quads, look, I'm already locked out and I just kind of lean back. Rather than if you're here and you get this curl going, now I'm here and now I got a whole nother lift. Use my erectors, kind of pull the rest of it out. Your take on the whole hug grip situation. We talked about it for a sec on- Yeah, obviously there's not like pure science on it so I just look like broad anecdotal surveys. And so when I'm looking at things, it's like, all right, how many people are breaking world records or winning powerlifting meets? Hug grip. Is every single person that's winning this game going hug grip? No. So, I think it's Joe, right? Is Joe the one fucking stirring the pot? It's got damage, Joe. He says it's overrated. I would agree. Hug grip is overrated. I think it's a great piece. Everyone's always worried about their biceps, but like if you pull correctly and you're not running a bunch of gear, the chances of busting your bicep are like, they're there, they're there, but they're low. I mean, you can bust your bicep benching, you can bust your pec benching, all these things are possible, but it's not as high of a chance as people think. As long as you're not like super exposed here, like just flex your tricep. Same would probably be with hook grip. You're just less likely to flex your bicep. You can bust a bicep doing that too. There's no law that says you can't. In terms of pure grip, there's a lot of big lifters who are missing their grip at the top, and I'm not saying that they would lift better with mixed grip, but it's just an anecdote that says, okay, mixed grip is 100% valid, if not more valid than a hook grip. Hook grip got popular. I don't even know why. Obviously, Olympic weight lifters do it and they have to do it. They can't underhand it because they have to catch it on their shoulders, although I have seen people do that. And when you do a continental press, you do that, or a continental clean. But yeah, I would agree. It's probably overrated. I've messed with it, and I've pulled up to like 500 that way. I obviously don't compete, so I just lift with straps and don't care and feel great about it. So I think maybe, you know, obviously do what you feel comfortable and do what you gotta do. I even love some double overhand work, non hook grip, non mixed grip. If you're talking about lighter weights or RDLs or anything of that nature, I think too many people are going a little bit crazy with the straps hook grip only, doing rows with straps and stuff like that. I am a fan of doing all my accessories, no straps as much as I can. Obviously, I'm not a bodybuilder, but I think there's something to get your grip going. But for most folks, man, choose a grip that's comfy. Play around with both of them. I don't think the imbalances in your back or hurricane in at the top of your lift is drastic as people talk about. Optimal foot placement. Yeah, so I think that's another thing people talk about. When they're talking about bench squat, any lift, all people think about is range of motion, which is like one tiny factor in the big picture of this. I've known benchers, look at Kareel, dude on the world record bench for the longest time, six, eight wingspan, right? Like, and he's not like, yeah, he's probably pretty maximal grip, but his stroke is so long. Eric's photo is a little bit more looking like a bencher, but not even that. Like his arms are like 25 inches big, so like it just looks like he's built like that. So range of motion is one small piece. If it wasn't, everyone would pull sumo more and they don't. Everyone would go max grip bench, they don't. Everyone would squat wide, they don't. When I'm thinking about someone's stance in the sumo deadlift, how to optimize it rather than where to start or how to begin. We're trying to get our knee kind of over our mid foot. And there's the anecdote that other people are wider, right? Now my knees over my ankle and they really cut that range and they're really mobile and they can pull big weights. But most people are gonna be probably strongest when they kind of get this knee right over that ankle or right over my mid foot. This is where I feel really, really strong. It's kind of a similar angle that we're jumping with. I know your little knee over toes, zealots are gonna talk about it. Yes, my knees can go over my toes, but this isn't how I jump. You ever play a basketball game, jumping like this. We're gonna get right about here and I'm gonna lay out from right here. And that's kind of where I wanna get in this range. So too wide for me, I got kind of short femurs. Now I'm inside here, plus I can't open up enough to get me close to the bar. So that's why my stance, people have always called it like a frog stance or a semi sumo. Sumo is when your hands are inside your knees, conventional is when your hands are outside your knees. I don't give a shit about the semantics. Mine looks small because I got short ass arms and short femurs, so I must get here to even get into a decent place with the bar. I could try to get way out here, but now I got no leverage in my quads. And again, sumo deadlift has a lot to do with quad strength, starting position and quad strength. Is there a reason why you were doing conventional? What's funny is like people watch the vlogs or my Instagram in different time zones or like different areas of my life. And like some people don't know that like I've pulled my biggest weight sumo. Some people think I only conventional. So they're like, are you gonna try sumo ever? Why don't you pull the sumo? And then other people would be the opposite. Like are you ever gonna pull sumo again and actually power lift? I pull conventional I think because it's easier. I think my back's really strong and I can just handle more load long term. Seabass asked if it's cause I'm old now. Some of that's like a little true. Like it's a little harsher on my hips to pull sumo. I don't ever really have hamstring, glute, low back stuff. So conventional like feels good, but kind of opening up in the sumo, I'm just not that mobile. So it makes my hips a little angry if I do a lot of volume. That's why today we just did a top set double and then on my volume I'll catch conventional. Which will lead us to the next thing. We'll talk a little bit about variations, overhyped ones, overrated ones, and the general topic of accessories and how they're highly overrated for strength athletes. The idea of GPP has been so driven home by West Side Barbell. West Side Barbell, conjugate method, Louis Simmons have a lot of contributions to the strength and conditioning world and a huge contribution to the power lifting world. But I think it gets misinterpreted when you represent it in a raw power lifting atmosphere and that's where we are. So like my number one variations are simple, maybe a block, maybe some chains so I continue to make progress. There's no secret about chains, but it's just a variation, beltless, paused. And that's kind of the end of it. You don't need a lot of automatic sauce. You need to lift weights, light weights with perfect form, medium weights really fast for reps and heavy weights as clean as you can. And mix those up in a pot and you get stronger over time. I think frequency in the deadlift is underrated. So pulling twice a week, there is some studies and stuff that shows that your overall systemic fatigue and your CNS being fried is the same on a squat in deadlift. People maybe feel it more on the deadlift because the absolute load that beginners tend to pull is much larger in poundage than the beginner's squat. It's very common to see a beginner that can crank out a 500 pound pull, barely squats 315 or 365. As you get more advanced, different, obviously muscle fibers, genetics, it leverages play more of an account, but though we see that gap tend to close unless they're like a specialist, but even then the CNS fatigue or being fried from deadlifts is purely because you're lifting 500 pounds versus 315. It's not the movement itself. Long story short, deadlifting two, twice a week, a heavier day, a medium day, a light day is all great ideas as well. Stiff leg deadlifts or RDLs, belt lifts, pause. All these things force us to use less weight than we can. Again, we're just managing fatigue but still getting a hip hinge of building muscle. In terms of pure accessory, something that's not a variation to lift. Again, kind of overrated but having bigger hamstrings, bigger glutes and bigger back will never hurt in the long run. I think chin-ups, rows, RDL, GHRs. There's a million exercises. It doesn't really matter. However, you feel good to push yourself near failure a couple of times a week, handling good food and sleep. You'll build muscle in your posterior and that's all that really matters. What's your opinion on rag pools? I still just don't understand them. If you have access to blocks, there's for hypertrophy, strength, there's no reason to ever rag pool. It's actually the most, if we had to make one useless movement, it's literally useless because you get the exact same thing from a block pool but you're not gonna ruin equipment and be all weird. And the tension on the bar is different. So might as well get into a block pool. Stop cutting for a second, right? You just want some straight maintenance. I'm like half and half. I'm still not consistent with that because I buy groceries already to my diet. You know what I mean? So I'm still kind of stuck in it. Not a deficit but just not eating enough. I had a burrito last night so a little bit of carbs. We're only a week past when we had our cheat meal. Even though if you counted, I probably didn't eat that many calories, really. I definitely had above maintenance but we didn't go that crazy. We got full. Check out Barbara Brigade's channel and we got a vlog here. So yeah, I just didn't eat as much as I thought. So I'll probably take another week and find maintenance. Then I'm hopefully going on a little vacay. And so then there, I'll probably just not track but focus on protein. I don't want to go crazy. And then when I come back, October will find like real maintenance probably. And so training will feel right. And training feels good right now. I got a little pump. I took yesterday off, just feel so busy with errands and shit. We've got our meet here tomorrow. And then I got weddings coming up and just a bunch of the next clothing launch, et cetera, et cetera. So just a little too busy to train yesterday. I ran around but feel good. Yeah. Once I get to real maintenance, I think I'll feel really good. If I can lock it in and sit at like 193, that's what I was today. Then I think I'll feel really good. So I'll be able to catch a pump, be able to add volume into my training and not worry about it. Hope you guys like this style of video. Leave your comments below. What topic you want us to cover next? Today is obviously sumo deadlift talk, but we can go into anything. Build a muscle, bench, overhead. I'm down. We're here to help you a little more vloggy style mixed with education. I appreciate you guys. 3sb.co. New videos twice a week. I appreciate you. Catch the next one.