What exercises do you guys do to increase your leg drive power?
I tend to pull in a sort of sumo/conventional hybrid as in rounded back, and using back more like a lever. recently, I’ve noticed my hips are starting to rise quicker than the rest of my body, I’m gettin less leg drive. If I force the hips lower so i’m in a deeper squat the weight doesn’t budge. I think it is because i tend to have a strong back and hips but weak thighs. I’ve been doing overhead squats ATG with a close stance and of I do regular back squats but with a wide stance.
I just started doing some strict conventional pulls too, where I keep the hips down and force the legs to do the work, in other words i remain very upright. What do you guys recommend, should I scratch some of these lifts? What lifts do you think are best for strengthening the leg drive in the deadlift?
stiff legged deadlifts should help. your hip strength may also benifit from doing sumo deadlifts.
if you have a weak upper back your hips will probably rise fast also hence the rounded back, i used to pull the same way but have since went sumo. for leg drive/power the goal is speed. speed work is also beneficial too.
Pete
Front squats and just keep getting stronger. If you can’t budge with a lower hip position, use the lower hip position for a while. Why would you avoid a problem you have identified?
One of the most humbling pieces of advice I ever followed about 2 years in to PL is that the quicker you learn to pull sumo wiht your hips down and as close to the bar as possible developing a pathway that pushes your hips to the bar the whole time, the better. If your hips rise first, the first movement is going to be away from the bar. Then, you are left having to correct that when you get over the knees which leads to problems at lockout.
Two excellent sumo pullers, Priscilla Ribic (550+ at 148) and Tony Reid (650 RAW at 181) do this very, very well and they both have exceptional quad mass.
Additionally, unless you’re some OL freak, you will never be able to handle meaningful weight/achieve meaningful volume using OH squats.
I found increasing my squat poundages helped my leg drive. I was in the same boat, strong lower back, but that was causing bad tech on my lifts cuz my legs werent strong enough. The best option i would say is low bar box squats. Couple this with assistance such as reverse hypers, back extensions and ghr’s and you will see your deadlift shoot up alot.
I’ve started deadlifting from a deficit for this very reason. I’m using a 3-4 inch box to stand on. A snatch grip deadlift would get the job done as well but I feel my grip is limiting me there so I prefer standing on a box. I’ll let you know how it worked in a few weeks.
I think I gonna see if I can convince the gymowner to get one. We do have a good ammount of powerlifters and strongmen training there, maybe I can get a few of them interested in it.
