Sumo deadlift form check and questions

[Hyperfluxe]

I pulled sumo for six weeks a while back, then came back to conventional, and now this is my second week of pulling sumo on my second cycle. Just looking for general tips.

Also, can you guys explain to me why my first rep is so damn hard compared to my subsequent ones?

[Tom Campitelli]

Watch what your head does on every rep. You look to far down, then wiggle it around, and eventually look up. Find a point 20 feet ahead and look at that. That should help with the head thing. Don't look down on deadlifts, especially not on sumo deadlifts. On the whole, your pulls look decent. Fix your head and I will be happy. Why are you pulling sumo?

As for your question about the first rep being hard, I have a trainee whose first rep almost always looks like a 1RM. I assume it has something to do with not being sufficiently prepared to generate force. It is probably as much a psychological effect as anything else. After you pull the first rep, you now know how much force you have to generate and can do so more easily. That's my guess. Wild speculation mostly.

[Hyperfluxe]

Watch what your head does on every rep. You look to far down, then wiggle it around, and eventually look up. Find a point 20 feet ahead and look at that. That should help with the head thing. Don't look down on deadlifts, especially not on sumo deadlifts. On the whole, your pulls look decent. Fix your head and I will be happy. Why are you pulling sumo?

As for your question about the first rep being hard, I have a trainee whose first rep almost always looks like a 1RM. I assume it has something to do with not being sufficiently prepared to generate force. It is probably as much a psychological effect as anything else. After you pull the first rep, you now know how much force you have to generate and can do so more easily. That's my guess. Wild speculation mostly.

Yeah my head position is messed up, I'll fix that this week.

I'm pulling sumo because I'm more competitive at it for powerlifting (conventional 5rm is only 410#), but I'm alternating between conventional and sumo since I'm aware that the conventional pull is better for back strength and since I'm running the Texas Method "split".

It's weird though because the first rep for any other lift (conventional deadlift, press, bench press and squat) are all easier than the subsequent ones but for sumo pulls the first rep is just as hard as the last one.

[Subsistence]

Yeah my head position is messed up, I'll fix that this week.

I'm pulling sumo because I'm more competitive at it for powerlifting (conventional 5rm is only 410#), but I'm alternating between conventional and sumo since I'm aware that the conventional pull is better for back strength and since I'm running the Texas Method "split".

It's weird though because the first rep for any other lift (conventional deadlift, press, bench press and squat) are all easier than the subsequent ones but for sumo pulls the first rep is just as hard as the last one.

I feel like sumo's are really hard off the ground, so maybe that has something to do with it? I assume you're warming up appropriately?

[Hyperfluxe]

I feel like sumo's are really hard off the ground, so maybe that has something to do with it? I assume you're warming up appropriately?

Yeah my last warm up was 405 for single, which is over 90%. That does make sense, but why wouldn't the subsequent reps equally as slow off the ground then?

[Hyperfluxe]

Hey Tom (or any other coaches), can you help me figure out how to program sumo + conventional pulls? Baker has no experience with sumo pullers so he couldn't help me unfortunately. I'm running the TM split like this (just like comrade Wolf):

Mon: bench 5rm, press 5x5, assistance (chins)
Tues: squat 5rm, x, assistance (rows)
Thurs: press 5rm, bench 5x5, assistance (lateral raises for aesthetics lol)
Fri: sumo DL 5rm, squats 3x5 (three sets is driving up my intensity along with sumo so I'm not gonna kill myself by doing 5x5), assistance (none)

It seems to make sense to add conventional pulls in place of the 'x', but what intensity and volume would it be done at? Any better ideas?

I know that sumo is not well liked here since the purpose of strength training is to get stronger, and conventional pulls accomplish that better than sumo but my numbers on sumo are going up so nicely. I pulled 455x5 today (10lb jump) so easily, even easier than the posted video in the OP. I'm also a powerlifter so I'm going to pull sumo at meets.

[Tom Campitelli]

Good choice on holding off on 5x5 if 3x5 is working. If your sumo deads are going up with what you are doing right now, then you might not need to do anything else. You could certainly put some submaximal conventional deads in there on Tuesday. You could also think about deficit deads or RDLs. I have a feeling that two heavy dealift workouts could get taxing pretty quickly. I might lean towards deficits or RDLs since they won't use quite as heavy of weights. I might lean most toward not adding anything right now since you don't seem to be stalling.

[Tom Campitelli]

Also, if you want a conventional variant that will help off the floor, consider halting deads.

[Hyperfluxe]

Sweet, thanks.