The deadlift, also known as the “pull,” is my favorite of
the Big Three movements (squat, bench, and deadlift). There are generally two
kinds of deadlifts, conventional and sumo (figure 1).
Figure 1:
Sumo and Conventional Deadlifts
Depending on your body proportions you may be stronger, and
safer, deadlifting one way or the other. If you are a proportional human, you
can deadlift any way you like. If you have long legs and relatively shorter
arms, you will more than likely be better at pulling sumo. If you have long
arms and relatively shorter legs, you are a lucky person and can probably pull both
conventional and sumo well. If you don’t know which one you should do, try both
and see which one feels more comfortable. Then again, lifting heavy weights
isn’t comfortable business. But let’s get on to finding your foot
position.
The right foot position for you is dependent on how you’re
built, and whether sumo or conventional stance feels more comfortable. The more
you look around at the gym and see people deadlifting, the more you will
realize everyone sets up a little differently. Along the foot position spectrum,
you get a continuum ranging from the super wide almost-doing-a-split stance to the
super narrow heels-touching stance.
Your toes don’t necessarily need to be pointing straight
forward either. Depending on how your hips’ ball-and-socket joints are
naturally aligned, it may not be best to set up in that position. Everyone’s leg
anatomy is different, with variations in ball-and-socket structure and femur
and tibia torsions. Each of these factors can affect our natural foot position.
Your body generally has a good idea about what’s best for
you when it comes to foot positioning for your deadlift. If you are a
conventional deadlift kind of guy or gal, marching in place and seeing where
your feet naturally fall is sometimes a good way to find out where your feet
should be. Sumo stance is slightly trickier to figure out, and you have to
experiment with what feels comfortable. Either way, I recommend playing around
with varying stances and foot positions to find what works for you.
There’s really no right or wrong way to set your feet up.
There are some more technical things to consider with the setup; however, those
will be covered in a later post. In the meantime, consider different stances
and foot positions that work for you in order to get a good setup and prepare
yourself for a good pull.
As always thanks for reading!
Ryan Goodell, CSCS
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