Coaches Corner: Set Up Tips The first thing most people screw up on any kind of deadlifts is the width of their grip. Your arms need to hang straight down from your shoulders. Any angle in, or more likely, out, makes you do more work – it sets you up in a more awkward starting position and makes the distance you have to pull longer. This is true for conventional deadlifters, and a very common mistake, but is even more troublesome with sumo deads, because if you grip the bar too wide, your hands get even more in the way of the movement and drives your knees to varus while caving in your chest. The second thing everyone needs to pay attention to is stance-width. When you first transition to sumo pulls, work your feet out to a wider stance SLOWLY, over several sessions, and stretch – a lot. Your hips will thank you. At first, getting your feet just outside of your hands will be fine. As you become mobile enough, going wider will mean a shorter stroke and a stronger lockout, at the expense of increasing the difficulty of breaking the bar off the floor. Get your feet under the bar and grab the bar at the appropriate width. Chances are it feels awkward as hell if you’re doing it correctly. Good. You want to get your center of mass as far behind the bar as you can without falling over. The cue here is STRAIGHT ARMS. You want to try and get your arms much more vertical than you’re probably used to. Strength WOD 5 x 3 Sumo Deadlift A2. 3 x 10 External Band Rotation
