Rode a half-century today. Pretty tired now. And sunburned.
Tomorrow will be a rest day so I can squat respectably on Monday.
A little information is a dangerous thing. I found this vid in the PLing sections.
This guy pulls very similar to how I was pulling before I started tring to fix my form.
I’m confused.
Modified sumo, the same way Ed Coan pulled. Definitely more low back than wide stance sumo.
Rather than change styles, what if you put a heavy emphasis on GMs and reverse hypers to get your low back bulletproof and on hams so they can assist more in the pull?
I was thinking about this today…people very often talk about the largest pulls being conventional. I would look at what the largest female pull is. Don’t look at the men. Look at the women - tested women. I couldn’t tell you for certain what it is but I suspect it’s sumo.
Becca Swansen has the largest at 635 I believe. She pulls conventional but doesn’t fall into tested. It’s still pretty beastly to watch.
The largest IPF is an Australian woman, Katrian Robertson but I can’t find out how she pulls(ed).
I was just starting to pull sumo prior to bicep surgery. Is there a certain angle for the thigh vs. Calf ?
Also, I should add that at one point I switched to sumo for the same reasons. Keep tweaking / straining my back. I switched back to conv after about 9 months.
As much as I hate to say it, the thing that made my low back stronger and healthier was DL sets in the 5-10 range. But not touch and go since I think form suffers too much for most. This was probably the biggest benefit to me of 5/3/1…just following the plan, taking the prescribed weight for the day and repping it out. I didn’t plan to do higher reps, it just worked out that way.
Of course, since I just started doing a Westside approach, I’ll doing lower rep DLs and going heavy and hard on GMs etc. which I’m sure will work fine as long as I’m smart with the DLs.
hmm. interesting sumo discussion. i’m thinking about trying to learn to pull sumo. what doesn’t break us makes us stronger. that is the idea, anyway. think it would be good for strengthening adductors and glute medius. bet shoving knees out hard with a less wide stance would be a breeze in comparison.
first of all vid of Snap junior on the mats is graceful poetry.
second vid of Snap senior sumo deadlifting from behond makes me want to eat a steak 
lovely quads.
third - I tried pulling sumo as explained by efs “drop your sack on it” close to the bar and it felt so wrong I quite after a couple of tries. Maybe I need a sack to make it work?
It seems to me the drop your sack on just means get lower, maybe if you tried getting into a lower stance on the setup? I’m about to start sumo style again and I feel I get real low on my stance. I feel it in my hamstrings and butt.
Lil Power: Asking about angles. Jeesh. You’re as analytical as I. Sorry, but I don’t have the answer to that one. I will add that the woman who was coaching me the other night pulls with a thumb-less grip to disengage the bicep. You might want to try that during your comeback.
Git: Pulling for reps. Ugh. But your point about GMs and reverse hypers is exactly what I’m doing. Trying to fix my weaknesses rather than just jump ship all together on conventional. Interestingly, I pulled my best raw PR by just doing singles after sumo warmups.
Frenchy: Yeah, the “drop your sack” cue was the same thing the woman who was coaching me the other night said. She was trying to get me to rotate my hips under rather than set up arching my back with my ass way back. Like I’ve said, what to do with dat ass?
Today: Upper body . . . mostly focusing on rehabby stuff.
I can really tell I did a long ride yesterday. My strength was really down. And my shoulders are really tired from the posture required of sitting in the saddle for so long yesterday.
Yes I am probably too analytical, I’ve been told to just quit thinking many a time. But still always want to be as technically correct as possible hoping for a break thru. (and a big PR)
I have also had the angle of my arms in relation to grip on the bar to help determine best grip width before too.
Here’s Jen Thompson pulling 408 raw, sumo. Her feet are to the plates and she has to rotate them in before lowering the weight down. She is tested at almost every meet it seems like.
I’v always pulled sumo myself and enjoy it. Don’t the westside boys always train sumo, but then compete conventional???
G
[quote]GBench wrote:
Here’s Jen Thompson pulling 408 raw, sumo. Her feet are to the plates and she has to rotate them in before lowering the weight down. She is tested at almost every meet it seems like.
I’v always pulled sumo myself and enjoy it. Don’t the westside boys always train sumo, but then compete conventional???
G
[/quote]
She’s the one I tend to look at for form since my build is closer to her’s than someone like Ed Coan or the men that have pulled the biggest weight…ever. I think when you’re deciding on a course to proceed on, you have to eliminate the outliers such as the men that have pulled the most ever in the world. I might not even look at the top woman since she’s also likely to be an outlier. Look at the top 10 or the top 50 and see what the majority of them are doing.
Jennifer Thompson really is awesome to watch. I spent a lot of time looking at her videos particulary deadlift.
I got to watch Jennifer Thompson compete in person last summer. She’s amazing. No question about it. I met her afterwards. She’s taller than me and much more of a mesomorph.
I think I just have to continue to play around with my sumo setup to find what works best for me. Isn’t that really the way it is for all of us with all of our lifts?
Maybe use your sumo as an assitance exercise for your conv dead? Learn it, get stronger at it, train it but when it comes time to ramp up for a meet focus on the conventional. I also think reps in the dead are great for building strength.
[quote]GBench wrote:
Here’s Jen Thompson pulling 408 raw, sumo. Her feet are to the plates and she has to rotate them in before lowering the weight down. She is tested at almost every meet it seems like.
I’v always pulled sumo myself and enjoy it. Don’t the westside boys always train sumo, but then compete conventional???
G
[/quote]
Way I was taught, train the opposite of your competition to make your competition pull better, something the westside guys have started doing.
[quote]DixiesFinest wrote:
Way I was taught, train the opposite of your competition to make your competition pull better, something the westside guys have started doing.[/quote]
I find that illogical but it’s exactly what I did during my last training cycle. I did sumo warmup and for reps and then pulled two heavy singles conventionally. I ended up getting raw and geared PRs at the end of that cycle. Wonder what the thinking is behind that.
Really interesting sumo discussions here. I don’t even know where to start with the cue of starting the lift with hips under me.
[quote]kpsnap wrote:
[quote]DixiesFinest wrote:
Way I was taught, train the opposite of your competition to make your competition pull better, something the westside guys have started doing.[/quote]
I find that illogical but it’s exactly what I did during my last training cycle. I did sumo warmup and for reps and then pulled two heavy singles conventionally. I ended up getting raw and geared PRs at the end of that cycle. Wonder what the thinking is behind that.[/quote]
I think it helps strengthen weaknesses and also aids in not over training a lift. The concept of strengthening weaknesses and training auxiliary lifts has been around for many years. High bar squat in off season to strength legs for low bar squats, strengthening presses, dips, inclines in off season to aid bench, different pull to strengthen comp pull etc.
[quote]Germanone wrote:
[quote]kpsnap wrote:
[quote]DixiesFinest wrote:
Way I was taught, train the opposite of your competition to make your competition pull better, something the westside guys have started doing.[/quote]
I find that illogical but it’s exactly what I did during my last training cycle. I did sumo warmup and for reps and then pulled two heavy singles conventionally. I ended up getting raw and geared PRs at the end of that cycle. Wonder what the thinking is behind that.[/quote]
I think it helps strengthen weaknesses and also aids in not over training a lift. The concept of strengthening weaknesses and training auxiliary lifts has been around for many years. High bar squat in off season to strength legs for low bar squats, strengthening presses, dips, inclines in off season to aid bench, different pull to strengthen comp pull etc. [/quote]
This is spot on. Most of the lifters I see who come in every week and just squat, bench, and deadlift, never progress beyond a certain point and often regress because they burn out, and they are never addressing weak points. There are exceptions to this, and these are either younger lifters and/or genetic freaks, but for 98% of lifters I think you need to rotate in variety, especially once you are past the initial break in level of just mastering correct bar path.
That is why Westside and its variations work, you work to get stronger on a variety of lifts with ME work, but keep perfecting form with DE work using submaximal weight.