 Question is from Cole World. Are trap bar deadlifts as good as straight bar deadlifts? Oh, we did trap bar deadlifts on our post Thanksgiving workout. Yeah, it's not that I don't think it's as good or not as good, it's different. Yeah, you know, I actually like trap bar deadlifts better for the average person than a straight bar deadlift because you get a lot of similar benefits, not the same, it's a different exercise, but you get similar benefits but it's easier to learn and to do properly. Less actual skill of having to, you know, like your mechanics aren't as like, there's not a whole lot that you have to teach in terms of like where you have to be specifically to otherwise, you know, like you're gonna like potentially get hurt if you do it wrong. Yeah, the risks with straight bar deadlifts are higher than with trap bar deadlifts. It's more technical with a straight bar. And so your risk of injury is higher. Now, that doesn't mean you're going to get injured. If you do both right, you're fine. It just means if you mess up a little bit, you're probably more likely to mess up with a straight bar and then because you mess up a little bit, you're more likely to hurt yourself with a straight bar. So now that being said, functionally speaking, okay, I think straight bar deadlifts have a little bit, get the edge in terms of functional strength because when you're bending over to lift something up, it's typically in front of you. So I think of lifting up at the end of a couch or helping your buddy carry something. Yeah, you're not grabbing in a neutral grip unless you're carrying a wheelbarrow or a fucking horse and carriage. Exactly. You're not close to your inner base in case you're doing that. But I get a lot of similar benefits. So with the trap bar, a little bit more quad involvement, but I still get that back thickness feel from it. I get less low back involvement than I would with a straight bar, but the low back is still pretty heavily involved. I personally can lift about anywhere between 60 to 70 more pounds with a trap bar because the biomechanics are just, it's better, there's more advantage to it. If I could pull 600 pounds with a trap bar, then that means I'd probably have 530 with a straight bar, type of deal. Yeah, I used the trap bar with, I guess we should explain what the trap bar is for somebody who doesn't know what that is. That's true. So the trap bar, it's like a, what shape is that? Is it like an, it's a- It's almost like a hexagon. It's almost like a hexagon. It does, it's almost like a score. They call it a hex bar as well, right? It's a hexagon. Yeah, so it's a hexagon is what it is. And then you stand in the middle of it and the hexagon goes all the way around you, right? And then you grab in a neutral grip. There's two handles on each side. Which is my favorite part is that it's in a neutral grip. Right, so I use this a lot with advanced age clients that I'm like training, right? So you can get the benefits, like you said, a lot of the benefits that you get for deadlifting without the help being as technical as the deadlift. But I prefer to teach that with the idea that we're going to progress to a deadlift eventually. And in fact, sometimes as a trainer, it's tough to actually get somebody really good at the trap bar and then transition to a conventional deadlift. Because if you didn't teach them how to properly set up with the trap bar as if you were going to be deadlifting with them, their setup is different. A lot of people can just get bent down to grab the trap bar and then they pick up and then they're all quad in it. And when I teach to get in set for a deadlift, I'm teaching more of the sliding the hips out and hinging back versus bending over to get the bar. And that's part of the poor mechanics that I see when people deadlift is they bend over to pick the bar up to deadlift and setting yourself up already and not loading the posterior chain first is one of the number one flaws I see with people deadlifting. And the other thing with the trap bar too is that there's two sets of handles on one and people don't know this, but if you, most trap bars, you can flip it upside down and there's a second set of handles and the handles on the backside of it are level to the weights where a straight bar will be. The ones on the top side, the handles come out and actually means you don't have to go down as low. And so when you use the upper handles, you're actually not doing as full of a range of motion as you are with the straight bar, with whatever the circumference is of a 45 pound plate. So that's something to consider too, if you use a trap bar, play around with the other sides, you go deeper. Also to that point, that's the other group of people I like, trap bar is great for athletes. Oh, it's the best deadlift for athletes. Because it more closely relates to the position that you would be in in basketball and football and any sports, rarely ever in sports will you be in a full range of motion, deadlift a barbell off a floor type of position. You're more likely at a slight bend in the knee like you would be in a trap bar, deadlift. So I think great for explosive jumps. Yeah, I would do jumps with a trap bar way before I would do jumps with a bar on my back, doing like a squat or whatever. Right, right. You know, you figure your arms act a little bit like shock absorbers when you land. So you can really focus on the explosive movement. Yeah, well, I even like somebody like Corey Schlesinger who uses it like that same explosivity out of the movement of like a power clean, but you're just now basically using the trap bar and emulating that same movement with your hips and triple extension, but it's so much safer and way less to learn skill-wise. One of my favorite exercises that I do now more recently than I never did when I was younger are heavy trap bar farmer walks. And this is something I learned, I started using because of MAP Strong. And on MAP Strong, as part of their work sessions, you do farmer walks and it is recommended, you can do those with dumbbells too, but a trap bar is great because you fit right inside the trap bar. When you can load it way heavier. You load it and you walk with it. Yeah. Good form, stabilize your body, tighten your core. And I just got great result. My arms felt bigger from doing that, just from holding onto that heavy weight. That's my favorite. And then, I mean, they do have some of those like handles where you can load plates. And so you have like two different handles that you can load like a heavy farmer load, but it's still, I mean, you're going to have that shift to consider. So it's nice to have that kind of balanced load too to load up heavy and walk with.