I know there is the Dave Tate way to deadlift and the Ian King way. I was watching a world strongman competition on OLN and every single strongman deadlifted with the bar either sliding up their shins or less than half an inch away from the shins. Their form seemed closer to the Ian King way than the Dave Tate way. Of course they didn’t squat all the way down like Ian King suggests but they didn’t use as much back as Dave Tate suggests. So is there really a right way to deadlift? Is this a lift where proper form doesn’t exist?
depends on what you are trying to achieve. The King type deadlift aims to increase muscle mass, whereas the Tate deadlift is designed to take advantage of leverage to help you lift more weight for a single rep.that said, I have also noticed that most of the strongmen seem to favour a King style deadlift and keep the bar very close to the shins. I have always deadlifted in this manner. Recently I vowed to increase my 1 RM in the deadlift to 600 lbs and tried thr Tate version. I sucked. I am not saying the Tate deadlift sucks, obviously the Westside boys are having good results with it, but I couldn’t get it to work for me, starting the pull with the bar over my toes and my shoulders behind the bar made my lower back feel as if it was going to snap.
Perhaps with some coaching and appropriate assistance work I could pull in this way but for now I am more comfortable with the more conventional King type deadlift.
Ben, maybe prioritizing your lower back in your training routines would help out with that. Or you could try doing deads with a lighter weight until you get the form down properly if you want to lift Tate style.
I also deadlift King style and had the same experience as ben when I did it Dave Tate’s way. But, I found out that my body (and everyone else’s) adapts to the natural ‘groove’ of DL’ing during the fatigued state. I recall Frank Shamrock saying that when one is in a fatigued state, the technique is much more recruited.
Thanx for the comments. I am already training in a WSB style, and subsequently focus much of my training on my lower back. I do various forms of goodmornings, pull thru’s, hypers, reverse hypers, sled drags, etc. My current max deadlift ( King style ) is 510 lbs.
When I tried the Tate deadlift, I started very light and worked up, and began to run into the uncomfort zone at 220 lbs.
I suspect that my inability to do any more than this is a functional weakness ( for this type of lift ) in the hips. Where my training differs from true WSB is that I do not train the Squat. Now before everyone flames me for not Squatting, I have a reason for not squatting. That is, I have found training the squat increases my waistline girth. As my squat poundage increases, so does my waist measurement. I do not ever plan to compete in powerlifting, my main aim is to have a body of a 70’s bodybuilder ( like Frank Zane ) and have a decent bench and deadlift. Zane always said that too much squatting increased his waistline, and Louie has said in various articles that if you are worsted about your waistline then powerlifting is the wrong sport for you. I train my legs mainly with step ups and reverse lunges.
My main reason for suspecting that I would have to put some work into my hips in addition to working on plain old neural adaptation for the Tate style is that my sumo deadlift max is only 400 lbs. I noted that Louie says that many of the Westside lifters can dead around the same poundage in either conventional or sumo, which is due to the lifters having achieved a balance of strength development in both the lowerback and the hips.
In any case, I will continue start the dead with my shoulders over the bar and drag it up close to my shins. The strongmen who lift in this way prove to me that it’s possible to heave respectable poundages in this way, and besides, in addition to brute strength, I want maximum muscular development.I would, however, still be interested in your opinion in regards to my theory about a lack of functional hip strength ( besides the neural adaptation to the lift )holding back my Tate style deadlift. Do you think the Tate style lift in part requires or works hand in hand with the hip strength gained from the box squats that the Westside boys live and die by?
I am fairly new to westsides training style but I have noticed thhat since I began box squatting I have learned how to use my hamstrings and glutes more than my quads and I have been developing a lot of explosive power in my hips as you are supposed to keep all other muscles tight and relax the hips when you sit back on the box and then explode off the box and accelerate throught the movement. When I get into position for the deadlift my hips are at pretty much the same height they would be at the bottom of the box squat and since box squats break up the eccentric/concentric chain in the hips it helps with my explosive power in deadlifting which is a static overcome by dynamic movement. I hope that makes sense. btw I am not familiar with Ian King’s method if anyone would care to enlighten me.
In response to how the strongmen competitors lift I think the main reason thay can pull extremely heavy poundages with improper form is because they ARE very STRONG men someone who is less gifted in the strength department or a person with a body structure that is not favorable to deadlifting will have to rely more on proper technique than brute strength to heft insane poundages. Ben have you tried adding in a dynamic box squat day once a week where you lift at 50% of your max 10-12 sets of 2 reps and just skip the max effort squatting. I would think that adhering to westsides speed day would not add much girth to your waist as long as you don’t squat on max effort day(which you could use to deadlift of course). And this will help you to develop more hip strength.
Yes, I did try speed squats on DE day for a couple of months.And, as you suggested, they did do a lot to strengthen my hamstrings and hips. However, I also found that my quads decreased in size in response to the hams becoming the primary movers, which runs counter to what I am aiming to achieve.
What I am doing now on DE day is speed deadlifts followed by hypertrophy quad work , and then finishing off the workout with extra work for lowback/hams and calf/abs. As I said in an earlier post, not true WSB, but a hybrid version of it designed to cater for my goals.
Pda, I would like to thank you for taking the time to answer my posts an putting forth informed and intellingent opinions.You have confirmed my line of thinking.I wish you well in your future training efforts, I am sure that with your converting to WSB methods you have some long and continues gains coming your way.