Sumo Deadlift
The sumo deadlift is a deadlift with a wide stance and the hands inside the knees: you pull the bar from the floor to your hips with a more upright torso than in the conventional style. It trains the glutes, quads and hamstrings together with the inner thighs and back, and the bar travels a shorter way than in the conventional deadlift.
How to do the sumo deadlift
Stand with your feet clearly wider than your shoulders and your toes turned out, the bar over the middle of your feet.
Push your knees out in line with your toes and lower your hips until you can grip the bar straight down, hands about shoulder width, inside your knees.
Lift your chest, pull your shoulders down and take the slack out of the bar until it presses against the plates.
Breathe in, brace your midsection and push the floor apart with your feet as you drive up.
Keep the bar against your legs and stand up until your hips and knees are straight, without leaning back.
Lower the bar under control along the same path, hips back and knees out, until the plates touch the floor.
Stance and foot position
Start with your feet clearly wider than your shoulders and your toes turned out, so that your knees can travel in the same direction as your feet. In the study of national-level powerlifters, the sumo group stood about twice as wide as the conventional group and turned their feet out further. The right width lets you sit your hips down between your feet with your shins close to vertical and your knees out over your toes.
Grip and setup
Grip the bar straight down from your shoulders, hands about shoulder width and inside your knees. Use a double overhand grip as long as you can hold the bar; for heavy sets, a mixed grip or lifting straps help. Then build the position: chest up, shoulders pulled down, and the slack taken out of the bar until you hear it press against the plates. Your hips end up closer to the bar and lower than in a conventional deadlift, with your torso more upright.
Bracing and breathing
Take a big breath into your belly, brace as if bracing for a punch and hold the air while the bar travels up. A belt helps some lifters brace harder, but it is not required. Breathe out at the top or once the bar is back on the floor, then reset your breath and your brace before every rep. Each rep starts from a still bar.
Bar path and lockout
Think of pushing the floor apart with your feet rather than pulling the bar. The bar moves in a straight line close to your legs while your knees stay out. Once it passes your knees, drive your hips forward and stand tall with your glutes tight. The lockout is complete when your hips and knees are straight; leaning back adds nothing.
Tempo and range
Pull smoothly: the start in sumo is often slow, because the legs have to break the bar off the floor from a deep position. Lower the bar under control along the same path, hips back and knees out, and let it touch the floor before the next rep. Full reps from the floor are what make your sets comparable and your strength level meaningful.
Muscles worked by the sumo deadlift
- Primary
- Glutes
- Quads
- Secondary
- Hamstrings
- Adductors
- Lower back
- Traps
- Forearms
The glutes and the quads do the most work: the wide stance keeps your torso upright and your knees bent at the start, so the legs push more of the weight off the floor. In an EMG study with college football players, the sumo style produced more activity in the front thigh muscles than the conventional deadlift, while the conventional style used the calves more. The hamstrings and the adductors on the inner thigh help extend the hips, the lower back holds your spine in position, and the traps and forearms carry the bar.
Common sumo deadlift mistakes
Letting the knees cave in
When the knees drift inward, the hips lose their wide, strong position and the bar gets stuck. Push your knees out over your toes the whole way.
Shooting the hips up first
If the hips rise before the bar moves, the lift turns into a stiff-legged pull with a wide stance. Push with the legs and let chest and hips rise together.
Starting with the bar away from the shins
A bar in front of the mid-foot swings out as it leaves the floor. Set it over the middle of your feet and keep it against your legs.
Jerking the bar off the floor
Yanking a slack bar costs your position. Pull the slack out first, then squeeze the bar off the floor.
Leaning back at the top
Hyperextending at lockout adds nothing but strain on the lower back. Stand tall with your glutes tight and stop there.
Choosing a stance you cannot sink into
Wider is not always better: if your hips cannot get low enough between your feet, bring your feet in until your shins can stay close to vertical.
How Muscla coaches the sumo deadlift
- Muscla's plans use the conventional deadlift, so add the sumo deadlift to your own routine and choose its progression there, for example Double progression. It then gets its own strength level, with the same thresholds as the conventional deadlift.
- Turn on “Warm-up sets” for it in your routine: Muscla then ramps you up from the empty bar to your working weight in a few lighter sets.
- Stop working sets with about two reps in the tank, two to three when you train for strength; beginners keep one more in reserve.
- Rest about 2 minutes between sets for strength and 90 seconds for every other goal.
- Once every set reaches the top of your range, Double progression adds 5 kg (10 lb) unless you set your own step, and the reps start again at the bottom.
Sumo deadlift sets, reps and rest
| Goal | Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| Strength | 8–12 | 2 min |
| Muscle | 6–10 | 90 s |
| Lose fat | 6–12 | 90 s |
| Fit | 8–12 | 90 s |
| Comeback | 8–12 | 90 s |
These are the ranges Muscla's plan uses for this kind of exercise; in your own routine, you pick your range.
Muscla's training logic counts the sumo deadlift as a compound lift, so the table shows the compound ranges Muscla's plan uses; pick the one for your goal for your own routine. There, Double progression lowers the weight by about 10% after three sessions without progress.
Estimate your sumo deadlift one-rep max
Filled in with example values. Replace them with yours.
Estimated 1RM
Brzycki 112.5 · Lombardi 117.5
Epley: 100 × (1 + 5 ÷ 30) = 116.7 kg
Load 117.5 kg on the bar →| Reps | Weight | % of 1RM |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 117.5 kg | 100 % |
| 2 | 110 kg | 94 % |
| 3 | 105 kg | 91 % |
| 4 | 102.5 kg | 88 % |
| 5 | 100 kg | 86 % |
| 6 | 97.5 kg | 83 % |
| 7 | 95 kg | 81 % |
| 8 | 92.5 kg | 79 % |
| 9 | 90 kg | 77 % |
| 10 | 87.5 kg | 75 % |
| 11 | 85 kg | 73 % |
| 12 | 82.5 kg | 71 % |
What is a good sumo deadlift? Strength standards
| Level | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| Beginner | under × 1.25 | under × 1 |
| Advanced | × 1.25 | × 1 |
| Strong | × 1.75 | × 1.25 |
| Very strong | × 2.25 | × 1.75 |
| Elite | × 3 | × 2.5 |
Estimated one-rep max as a multiple of body weight, where each level starts. The same in kg and lb.
Sumo deadlift alternatives
Sumo deadlift questions
Is the sumo deadlift cheating?
No. It is a legal style in powerlifting. It is a shorter pull: in a study at a national championship, conventional lifters moved the bar about 25 to 40 percent farther and did that much more mechanical work. Using a shorter path within the rules is a technique choice, not cheating.
Sumo or conventional deadlift: which muscles work more?
The sumo style uses the front thigh muscles more, the conventional style the calves more. Both train glutes, hamstrings and back hard, so pick the one you can pull with the best position.
Is the sumo deadlift easier on the lower back?
Your torso stays more upright, and a model study of competing powerlifters estimated about 10 percent less bending moment at the lower spine in the sumo style. It still loads the back, so brace on every rep.
What is a good sumo deadlift for my body weight?
In Muscla's strength levels, men count as advanced from a one-rep max of 1.25 times body weight, strong from 1.75 and very strong from 2.25. For women the same levels start at 1.0, 1.25 and 1.75 times body weight.
How much should a beginner sumo deadlift?
For an exercise you add yourself, Muscla's first suggestion for a man new to training is about 0.5 times body weight, rounded down to your plates: 40 kg at 80 kg. Your first working set then corrects it.
Train it with Muscla
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Sources
- Escamilla RF, Francisco AC, Kayes AV, Speer KP, Moorman CT. An electromyographic analysis of sumo and conventional style deadlifts. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2002;34(4):682-688. PubMed
- Escamilla RF, Francisco AC, Fleisig GS, et al. A three-dimensional biomechanical analysis of sumo and conventional style deadlifts. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2000;32(7):1265-1275. PubMed
- Cholewicki J, McGill SM, Norman RW. Lumbar spine loads during the lifting of extremely heavy weights. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1991;23(10):1179-1186. PubMed
- Schoenfeld BJ, Pope ZK, Benik FM, et al. Longer interset rest periods enhance muscle strength and hypertrophy in resistance-trained men. J Strength Cond Res. 2016;30(7):1805-1812. PubMed