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Converting to Sumo

B

Bazza20

Well-known member
This was brought up in stickys log so i thought might as well make a thread about it and get other peoples experiences with converting from conventional to sumo deadlift. Also it will give people some info who are thinking about trying it.

Sticky been doing great with the sumo and he mentioned that sumo wont add kgs to your lift and that he has been working on it for 18 months. My experience has been the total opposite. Basically first time i tried it hit a 20 kg pb over conventional then added another 10kgs to that over the next 2 workouts. I think fuzzy had a similar experience.

I think i have done barely 10 sumo deadlift sessions and it seems to sit at about 30-35kg above my conventional deadlift without even training it. I have hit some conventional PBs of late so i will test the sumo soon to see if i am still getting the carryover. I have noticed though as i am getting up into higher weights with the sumo that lockouts are getting tougher which never used to be a problem, so i may have to work on that.

so what have other people experienced when converting to sumo?
 
how wide are you going?

are you back dominant?

I have good speed however off the floor i am too slow so i have a sticking point. Though with a suit that will fix that problem.. Though im about 50kg behind on sumo atm. I can sldl more then i can sumo.
 
Christian said:
how wide are you going?

are you back dominant?

I have good speed however off the floor i am too slow so i have a sticking point. Though with a suit that will fix that problem.. Though im about 50kg behind on sumo atm. I can sldl more then i can sumo.
Click to expand...

Yep defiantly back dominant for sure. My sumo is basically a wide stance, arms inside, conventional deadlift rather than the typical arse down squat the weight up sumo. I go a fairly wide stance sumo.
 
Bazza20 said:
I'm longer arms and legs, shorter torso.
Click to expand...

Well I think that's about perfect for conventional deadlifting, same as me. Pulling sumo for a while will increase your conventional pull but with those proportions the torso is the shorter lever so it makes sense to give the torso the larger angle
 
0ni said:
Well I think that's about perfect for conventional deadlifting, same as me. Pulling sumo for a while will increase your conventional pull but with those proportions the torso is the shorter lever so it makes sense to give the torso the larger angle
Click to expand...

I know. I should be better at conventional according to what everyone says. I have a deadlifter build with the shit squat to go with it. Still doesn't change that strangely i can sumo 30-35kg more than I can pull conventional.
 
Bazza20 said:
I know. I should be better at conventional according to what everyone says. I have a deadlifter build with the shit squat to go with it. Still doesn't change that strangely i can sumo 30-35kg more than I can pull conventional.
Click to expand...

Maybe you have a strength imbalance that you're overlooking? A guy I trained with was in a similar situation coach had him stop deadlifting altogether and got his squat up 20kg or so then retested his sumo and conventional pull. The one that increased the most was the one he picked to train with.

Remember that you're not training to lift the most weight (even if you compete, you only have to lift the most weight in competition). So in my opinion, you should train the lift that gives you the biggest training effect. I'd be tempted to see how much you progress on squats, sumo and conv then train the one you can increase the fastest as your main lower body lift and this generally will fix any strength imbalances.

My squat is sucking at the moment, so I'm deadlifting a light weight and focusing on squats and my deadlift is increasing (pulls are faster and easier generally) without lifting much more than 70% for a set of 5
 
Maybe I have an imbalance I don't know. I'm not really big on weak point training. I don't think I am advanced enough yet, just keen to keep getting stronger overall at the moment.

I really only train for conventional then just do a couple weeks of sumo to see what numbers I can pull.

Conventional dead is up and squats are getting better so it will be interesting to see the carryover to sumo deads in a month or two.
 
My 2c

People always seem to think sumo is easier for some reason. They think that by pulling sumo, it some how makes the lift easier and allows you to lift more weight.
These people have no clue, and it shits me when people discredit somebody's deadlift number because it was sumo.

I first moved to a moderate sumo stance about 18 months ago. I moved to it as conventional felt awkward and loose, I also never got much leg drive out of conventional, I know I get plenty now... I have a torn quad to prove it.
About a year later, somebody told me that my stance is the stance that Ed used.

I have no idea what I can pull conventional, but I know when I made the change, it didn't add kg's to the lift.
I do remember major pain for about a month while I adjusted to the new technique.

The thing that had had the biggest impact on my deadlift numbers is...... Not deadlifting. Just lots of squats. I'm pretty sure I pulled 220kg, did less than half a dozen deadlift sessions in for 6 months then pulled 270kg.

Bazza, I'd be interested in checking out your sumo technique if you can get a vid up.
Also, what numbers are you pulling? You say it added 20kg, but was that 100-120? 200-220? 300-320?
 
Based on what you have said, it sounds like you might have proportionally weak glutes to your other lower body muscles. I don't think much needs to be done about it though.
If you're doing a 5x5 type routine then alternating sumo/conventional weekly or monthly while pushing squats hard would work well or if you're doing something like 5/3/1 you could do 3 or 4 cycles of sumo while doing conventional for assistance and vice versa.

I'd play around with different deadlifting form as well. I lift conventional with feet hip width apart but put my knees right out so my hands start inside my knees and there are about a million different ways to deadlift lol
 
Sticky I agree I have nothing against a sumo deadlift. A dead is a dead don't care what stance you use.

Basically when I first tried sumo I was lifting 210 con and lifted 230 sumo first go then 235 the next week. Within a month or 2 I lifted 270 sumo with a con deadlift of 235-240.

I haven't done sumo since then and had a bit of a slow patch but have now done a conventional of 250 but I'm pretty sure I could do 260 at the moment.
 
Thanks for that. Nice DL too.
Would you say you break the floor with your legs or back?

-Oni, no offence bro, but your set up sounds awkward as fuck. I'm picturing a lot of power loss.
 
Sticky said:
Thanks for that. Nice DL too.
Would you say you break the floor with your legs or back?

-Oni, no offence bro, but your set up sounds awkward as fuck. I'm picturing a lot of power loss.
Click to expand...

My deadlift is pretty much all lower back doesn't matter if it's sumo or con. Basically if my lower back is strong enough to stay flat and not round over like a cat having a shit I can lift it.
 
Sticky said:
Thanks for that. Nice DL too.
Would you say you break the floor with your legs or back?

-Oni, no offence bro, but your set up sounds awkward as fuck. I'm picturing a lot of power loss.
Click to expand...

It looks a bit like the feet position you have in your avatar with feet at hip width, hands drag up my legs as I lift. I played around with it a lot and that seems to work best for me. My lower back seems to round very easily in deadlifts but sticking my knees out like in the bottom of a squat seems to work very well in preventing that
 
If you look at my vid, you can see how our set up sounds fairly similar.

The only difference is you say that your feet are shoulder width apart.

My hands are at the very start of the knurling and with my feet a fair bit wider than shoulder width, it works well.

If my feet were shoulder width, and i still had my hands inside my legs, it would be like some weird frog like position, with my knees waaay outside of where they should be.

Talking of knee's, from this vid, you can see how my shins are not vertical?
I believe this is what has caused the current pain in my right knee.
Ive since flared my feet out more, and the problem was fixed.


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0e01Qsqero[/ame]


Im picturing your legs the opposite of what my problem was.
 
I could take a video on Wednesday and that will probably give a better clue as to what I need to do. My feet are a little wider than shoulder width, I don't have a tape measure on my but my Dell 17" laptop is a snug fit between my feet lol. I'll try turning my feet out a bit as well. I'll do a set of 5 with a weight I can comfortably do and try various different stances
 
Oni: sounds like a recipe for bad knees to me. I would have thought keeping them tracking straight, conventional or sumo would be the go.
 
He needs Ivankos, can't fit enough weight on the bar lol.

At the deadlift comp they had we had to put a collar on backwards to fit it on.
 
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