[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
Is there a reason he has to pull full ROM deads? Is he trying to compete in strongman or powerlifting?[/quote]
No, he’s trying to gain some weight and get stronger for basketball. I guess I never thought that it could not be necessary to pull full ROM deads… [/quote]
Personally, I feel like time spent trying to get him able to do a full ROM deadlift is time that could be spent getting him bigger and stronger.[/quote]
This.
Also, it sounds like you are a beginner yourself. Helping out to your best capacity is cool and all, but watch out for “the blind leading the blind”.[/quote]
Not a complete beginner, but yeah in the grand scheme of things you are correct. Unfortunately the opportunities for good coaching are scarce in our area. I’m just trying to help him to the best of my limited potential. I pointed him in the direction of Rippetoe and other sources of good information as well. I helped him with the basic stuff, but thats why I’m here trying to get more info on what he should do. If I came across as trying to sound like a self proclaimed expert I apologize for that, but your ability to see through stuff like that is why I’m posting in this thread. I also agree with thepwnisher, and I wish I had gone through that thought process myself.
[quote]bulkNcut wrote:
A friend of mine has very long legs, he’s also 6’ 6 so pretty tall. He can’t get down into the conventional stance without rounding his back a lot. I told him to work on his hamstring flexibility, but also said he might consider pulling sumo instead of conventional.
Would it be better to recommend doing rack pulls and slowly working down? Or is it just that some people can’t get down into a conventional stance and sumo is better. He doesn’t have access to a trap bar either. Just wanted to help the guy out, so I’m trying to find as much info as I can. [/quote]
Arm length can be a factor as well as leg length. If his legs are disproportionately long and his arms aren’t then he might have a problem. Another thing is long shins are much much worse for deadlifting than long femurs. So it’s not as simple as just long arms make deadlifts hard. Rich sadiv is a good example, at 6’2 he has arms and legs that look too long for how short his torso is. I think his best deadlift was 794 in the 198 class (!!!) and at that height you can imagine he is very lanky so his leverage is good. Of course he’s also naturally explosive, but that’s something else
Anyway, if you size up your friend and conclude that there’s no way he can reach the bar even if he did a pure hip hinge uninhibited by tight hamstrings, then he might have to consider other options. He might still have problems with sumo deads (i.e. his stance placing his feet wider than the plates on the bar).
Why does he want to deadlift? This isn’t the powerlifting forum so i suppose he’s not a powerlifter. If he’s an athlete that just needs posterior chain work there’s other options
[/quote]
Aside from just the obvious method of looking at his body structure, are there any markers that would show that his body type just isn’t suited?
[quote]aeyogi wrote:
Why not sumo? If conventional sucks, fuck it.[/quote]
If he’s training for basketball sumo is basically a huge waste of time.
Make sure you’re doing achilles mobility work(think it’s included in Defranco’s Limber 11, can’t remember). Even if you end up ditching the attempts to get him DLing from the floor, it’s just a good thing to do for sport mobility anyways.
If for whatever reason he just can’t get the DLs going for him there’s nothing wrong with doing other posterior chain movements for sport carryover(equipment notwithstanding). Pull throughs, GHRs, Reverse Hypers, RDLs… so many good exercises to pick from besides conventional pulls.
[quote]bulkNcut wrote:
A friend of mine has very long legs, he’s also 6’ 6 so pretty tall. He can’t get down into the conventional stance without rounding his back a lot. I told him to work on his hamstring flexibility, but also said he might consider pulling sumo instead of conventional.
Would it be better to recommend doing rack pulls and slowly working down? Or is it just that some people can’t get down into a conventional stance and sumo is better. He doesn’t have access to a trap bar either. Just wanted to help the guy out, so I’m trying to find as much info as I can. [/quote]
Arm length can be a factor as well as leg length. If his legs are disproportionately long and his arms aren’t then he might have a problem. Another thing is long shins are much much worse for deadlifting than long femurs. So it’s not as simple as just long arms make deadlifts hard. Rich sadiv is a good example, at 6’2 he has arms and legs that look too long for how short his torso is. I think his best deadlift was 794 in the 198 class (!!!) and at that height you can imagine he is very lanky so his leverage is good. Of course he’s also naturally explosive, but that’s something else
Anyway, if you size up your friend and conclude that there’s no way he can reach the bar even if he did a pure hip hinge uninhibited by tight hamstrings, then he might have to consider other options. He might still have problems with sumo deads (i.e. his stance placing his feet wider than the plates on the bar).
Why does he want to deadlift? This isn’t the powerlifting forum so i suppose he’s not a powerlifter. If he’s an athlete that just needs posterior chain work there’s other options
[/quote]
Aside from just the obvious method of looking at his body structure, are there any markers that would show that his body type just isn’t suited?[/quote]
If his hamstring tightness is still unresolved I don’t think you’d be able to tell because you won’t see how far he can hip hinge.
After reading that he’s a basketball player I would say just have him do pulls off blocks/rack pulls for now
Just wanted to check in and say we figured it out. His calves were incredibly tight and I taught him how to hip hinge. After that we started doing rack pulls with just the bar and worked him all the way to the bottom pin position. So basically a few more inches and he’s at the plate level. Thanks again for all of the input
I love the emphasis on mobility. That’s something I really like about this forum, they pay attention to the details that affect their training. I would rather think in terms of the ability of a joint to go through a range of motion rather than simply muscle length inhibiting a movement. There could be some nerve restriction going on in his posterior leg and hip, his glutes may not be active, facilitating a bad hip hinge pattern, he could be overemphasizing keeping his weight in his heels (which is inferior to a midfoot balance imo)… thr point is there may be another problem that is causing his dysfunction rather than hamstring length. Doing a simple supine hamstring test will probably determine whether hamstring length is truly the issue.