Okay… I just recieved and watched Ian King’s Killer Leg Exercise video. I noticed that he had a WHOLE bunch to point out on technique about NOT rotating the Pelvis. On Dave Tate’s “The Deadzone” article, he SPECIFICALLY says to arch your back. What I concluded from it is that they are simply two separate schools of teaching, one not necissarily better than the other? Furthermore, in his “Squatting from heat to toe” article, he again specifically says to arch the back, where king says to keep it inline with the spine. What do you guys think?
this debate has gone on before. I have tried both and have been able to lift more using the technique that tate teaches and have not gotten hurt. many others train with the arched back and have not gotten hurt. others probably lift more the other way king teaches. my workout partners do not arch. try both and see what works better for you for your particular current goals. i read comments about ian’s methods being more functional and having great carry over - but i don’t buy that.
We’ve following Dave Tate’s deadlift tips and have been making tremendous gains. However you have piqued my interest on Ian King’s technique. I may have to actively compare the two during my next dead workout and see for myself. Hmmmm.
Yeah that’s right, P-I-Q-U-E-D. 
Most important is that the position of the pelvis doesn’t change throughout the lift. Arched back or not, don’t let your butt tuck back under at the bottom of the lift or allow your torso to rotate too far back and change the alignment of your spine at the top. Both will cause huge stress to the lower back.
Kyle Witter, good question. You are right on the money when you say that they are two different schools of thought. The main difference between the two is that King’s is more conductive to hypertrophy. I say this not only because you are most likely to lift less with King’s techniques (for both lifts), but because his techniques make both of the lifts more “isolation” exercises (squat+quads; dead=hams). Although I have had success with both methods, I spend the majority of my training time using King’s methods. Why? 1. I am not overly concerned with the amount of weight that I am able to push. 2. I like the way King’s technique splits the exercises into my training split (one day quads, the next hams). 3. The way King’s technique has you posistion your upper back is such that it can offeset the high volume of pushing exercises that most trainies spend too much time on. Plus, I have noticed a nice increase in upper back hypertrophy. Finally I would encourage you to try both methods, as King says, “there is no right or wrong way of doing an exercise”. And it may take a while, it took me 4-6 weeks before I got them where I could lift heavy loads with good form (and I learned cleans in a day, snatches in 2-3). (This is most likely due to the fact that I had problems selectively recruiting my lower and inner abbs-doing a King abb routine will enormously help with this.)
I believe they have different techniques because of different goals. King is trying to teach the best way for hypertrophy. Whereas, Tate is trying to teach the best way for strength. Both are valid and effective. Do what works best for you.
From a physiological standpoint, king’s style is probably the safer of the two. Overarching or underarching (rounding) of the back both place stress unevenly on the vertebrae, and can cause herniated discs and spraining of the vertebral ligaments. The safest position in terms of weight distribution on the spinal discs and vertebrae is with a “neutral” back posture - one that is not overarched nor underarched. In addition, since some individuals are inherently more flexible than others, telling them to arch their backs can put an unreasonable amount of strain on their vertebrae. That being said, if the resistance is built up slowly over time, then perhaps the spine will not be at risk when using an arched technique.