TheDeliverator
01-19-2007, 11:57 PM
Leah recommended I repost this here; it was originally posted in Matt's log.
***
I don't know how much of this will pertain to you, but, I hope you (or anyone who reads your log) will get something from it. I'm going to dump out my thoughts on sumo in no particular order.
First and foremost, I believe it's important to develop a decent/strong conventional pull before ever attempting to be a sumo puller. The Finnish lifters (great sumo pullers) believed the same thing, citing that the conventional pull was responsible for not only developing the entire back (upper, mid, lower, lats), glutes, hamstrings and stomach, but, it also clearly displayed weaknesses that were more easily identified than during sumo.
The back work is another thing to consider, I know Louie has mentioned several times that sumo actually requires a stronger back than conventional. He means this during lockout, not the entire lift, but he has his way of really generalizing things. If you think about it, the femurs are externally rotated and the hips/glutes are already as locked-out as they can get -long before the bar and the upper body are completely locked out. This means that one relies more on their lower, mid and upper back (especially) during the lockout.
You always hear how sumo is weak off of the floor but strong at lockout...and with guys that are new to the sport (relatively speaking, think 3 or 4 years) this typically isn't the case. They tend to be weak off of the floor and at lockout/around the knee. I strongly believe a lot of this has to do with back strength.
Of course, one has to also consider the body position for the beginning of the pull before you can decide if your lockout is, in fact, weak. It may be strong, but you may be out of position enough that your body cannot finish the lift in the appropriate way. Paul Childress told me over the phone once, "you cannot identify weak points until you fail with perfect form." That should be read again, and again.
As far as opening your groin up, this is where you have to be aggressive with the mobility work, the flexibility work, the foam rolling and all of the movement prep stuff. Just like lifting, you have to keep track of it to ensure progress is being made. Going through the movements, with mobility especially, won't do you any good.
We spend about 30-40 minutes getting ready to lift before we start touching bars. This usually includes band work (facepulls, goodmornings, x-band walks, hip stuff, knee-outs, etc), back raises or reverse hypers (light, controlled), and loads of mobility work (hip mobility over benches, leg swings to the front, side, static hip flexor stretching and dynamic movements for the hamstrings and groin). It requires effort and consistency.
Your feet should be out, your knees should be out and over your ankles -the last thing you want is to have your knees pulled in and over the bar in the starting position.
I like to get a breath, and squat down while pushing my hips back and my knees out...if I feel like it while warming up I will actually push my legs out with my forearms on the way down. After grabbing the bar (close enough to limit ROM, but not close enough that my torso gets in the way at lockout) I flex my lats and my lower back, and push out against my abs as hard as I can. The last thing I do before I pull is I "turtle" my head backwards and wiggle my toes, to make sure my weight is, in fact, going backwards.
From there I squeeze while pushing my knees out and throw my head back.
Here is an example from a few months ago (before working on conventional, which I will talk about next). Please ignore the fall, heh, as I was pulling a little too far backwards.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yiQYQdPVN2M
Notice the knees and the feet, and where my hips are...not too low but not too high, either.
Now, I was having a problem with locking weight out with sumo. Part of it has to do with my hands (so small, and with short fingers, my nails dig into my skin instead of the knuckles, like most people), but, the other part was my lack of back strength. When I squat in my canvas I squat very wide, with a high-bar position, and I stay (more or less) upright. This is true when I sumo deadlift, as well. These two things, coupled together, made me really neglect my back strength.
For the last few months, I've been hammering my conventional pull (and managed to put 50-60 pounds on it). I used conventionals for speed pulls, for speed pulls while standing on cinder blocks, for pulls against chain for triples...everything. I didn't touch sumo.
This did a few things for me; first, it built my lower, middle and upper back very, very well. It also gave me that brute force I was severely lacking with sumo. I pulled sumo for the first time in a few months on Wednesday, and, they were the fastest and best looking pulls I've done to date. With that large of a change in such a short time, I strongly believe conventional work had a lot to do with that.
For my accessories, I do a lot of GCB GM's (usually sets of 5, after my MESQDL movement), and on DESQDL days I do a lot of back raises (with a doubled band and DB, or with a loaded bar on my back). I dropped GHR's for back raises for the last 6 weeks or so, and when I did GHR's on Wednesday I was stronger, too.
I also started to hammer my rowing movements (DB rows with 135's for 8, which means I'm working hard, instead of my usual 95 pound crap), as well as bringing up my ab movements; I do my GHR situps with a 45 behind my head. 3x10 is about all I can manage here, and they are all fighters. Sidebends I do as well, again, heavy, 135's for 8, and will start using heavier db's on Saturdays in Spokane (squatting with Mikesell and the rest of the IG crew).
Hamstring work will come in during the GM's and back raises, as well as GHR's, and we do a lot of KB work...swings for time (which is a killer, especially for the glutes), and snatches or cleans starting in a sumo position with the KB's starting at a deadstop on the floor. KB's are great and fun.
Upper back work is taken care of with the rows (usually DB rows, CSR or Pendlay rows) and the use of weighted chin-ups. I like chin-ups, a lot, and started doing a few sets of 5 after benching and will add weight to them as I feel able to. I really like the chin-ups; they recreate that feeling of flexing your lats when you get setup to pull -an extremely important aspect of pulling. Cressey had a great article on T-Nation about using your lats for squatting and pulling, by the way. Highly recommended (in addition to his MM and Robertsons Inside-Out package)!
Grip work is done by never using straps, even on sidebends and rows or pulls, and, through block work. We have a grip kit similar to the one offered at Elite (our female lifter, Thor, welded us our own set) and we use it twice a week. The other days are usually used for sand-digs, which are great for finger strength, and if you rotate and bend your fist in the sand it's great for elbow and wrist stuff. It only takes a few minutes, and the benefits are huge.
As it stands now, I like sumo speed pulls against bands for speed, but, I don't like how bands feel at lockout, being that the bar won't move in a straight up-and-down line like the bands do, so they don't let me lockout the way I do with straight weight. Which is why (tada!) I do speed pulls against chain, too. Still offers accomodating resistance, but, allows the bar to move in a more natural curve (without the grounding effect). We also use sumo pulls while standing on cinder blocks for a ME movement. These are usually done with straight weight. Sumo pulls for triples against chain are also a favorite, typically done as a second movement on MESQDL days.
To give you an idea of how we structure things in a week, look at this:
Monday:
-ME Bench movement (shirt, boards, rev. band)
-Upper-end movement (boards, lockouts)
-Lats (Pendlay or DB)
-Chinups
Wednesday:
-DEDL (blocks, bands, chain, sumo or conventional in 3 week waves)
-GHR
-Back raises [OR] KB swings for time
-GHR situps
-Sidebends
Friday:
-DB/BS press (usually light, 3x20)
-Lats (CSR)
-Chinups
-Shrug movement (bar, DB, or kelso/csr)
Saturday:
-MESQDL movement (suit work, specialty bar box squats narrow, etc.)
-DL with chain (for triples) [OR] GCB GM's (for 5's)
-Rev. hyper (done heavy)
-GHR situps
That's it. Add in a warm-up before, stretching after, and grip work where you see fit, and that's how we train (while in-season, out of season is a different story).
Whew, very long-winded, I know, but atleast it gives you some food for thought. I've struggled with pulling for, well, forever, but things are finally starting to come around. To make that happen, though, I had to stop caring about the little shit and start hammering the important shit. It has made all of the difference in the world.
***
Leah, you owe me a cookie.
***
I don't know how much of this will pertain to you, but, I hope you (or anyone who reads your log) will get something from it. I'm going to dump out my thoughts on sumo in no particular order.
First and foremost, I believe it's important to develop a decent/strong conventional pull before ever attempting to be a sumo puller. The Finnish lifters (great sumo pullers) believed the same thing, citing that the conventional pull was responsible for not only developing the entire back (upper, mid, lower, lats), glutes, hamstrings and stomach, but, it also clearly displayed weaknesses that were more easily identified than during sumo.
The back work is another thing to consider, I know Louie has mentioned several times that sumo actually requires a stronger back than conventional. He means this during lockout, not the entire lift, but he has his way of really generalizing things. If you think about it, the femurs are externally rotated and the hips/glutes are already as locked-out as they can get -long before the bar and the upper body are completely locked out. This means that one relies more on their lower, mid and upper back (especially) during the lockout.
You always hear how sumo is weak off of the floor but strong at lockout...and with guys that are new to the sport (relatively speaking, think 3 or 4 years) this typically isn't the case. They tend to be weak off of the floor and at lockout/around the knee. I strongly believe a lot of this has to do with back strength.
Of course, one has to also consider the body position for the beginning of the pull before you can decide if your lockout is, in fact, weak. It may be strong, but you may be out of position enough that your body cannot finish the lift in the appropriate way. Paul Childress told me over the phone once, "you cannot identify weak points until you fail with perfect form." That should be read again, and again.
As far as opening your groin up, this is where you have to be aggressive with the mobility work, the flexibility work, the foam rolling and all of the movement prep stuff. Just like lifting, you have to keep track of it to ensure progress is being made. Going through the movements, with mobility especially, won't do you any good.
We spend about 30-40 minutes getting ready to lift before we start touching bars. This usually includes band work (facepulls, goodmornings, x-band walks, hip stuff, knee-outs, etc), back raises or reverse hypers (light, controlled), and loads of mobility work (hip mobility over benches, leg swings to the front, side, static hip flexor stretching and dynamic movements for the hamstrings and groin). It requires effort and consistency.
Your feet should be out, your knees should be out and over your ankles -the last thing you want is to have your knees pulled in and over the bar in the starting position.
I like to get a breath, and squat down while pushing my hips back and my knees out...if I feel like it while warming up I will actually push my legs out with my forearms on the way down. After grabbing the bar (close enough to limit ROM, but not close enough that my torso gets in the way at lockout) I flex my lats and my lower back, and push out against my abs as hard as I can. The last thing I do before I pull is I "turtle" my head backwards and wiggle my toes, to make sure my weight is, in fact, going backwards.
From there I squeeze while pushing my knees out and throw my head back.
Here is an example from a few months ago (before working on conventional, which I will talk about next). Please ignore the fall, heh, as I was pulling a little too far backwards.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yiQYQdPVN2M
Notice the knees and the feet, and where my hips are...not too low but not too high, either.
Now, I was having a problem with locking weight out with sumo. Part of it has to do with my hands (so small, and with short fingers, my nails dig into my skin instead of the knuckles, like most people), but, the other part was my lack of back strength. When I squat in my canvas I squat very wide, with a high-bar position, and I stay (more or less) upright. This is true when I sumo deadlift, as well. These two things, coupled together, made me really neglect my back strength.
For the last few months, I've been hammering my conventional pull (and managed to put 50-60 pounds on it). I used conventionals for speed pulls, for speed pulls while standing on cinder blocks, for pulls against chain for triples...everything. I didn't touch sumo.
This did a few things for me; first, it built my lower, middle and upper back very, very well. It also gave me that brute force I was severely lacking with sumo. I pulled sumo for the first time in a few months on Wednesday, and, they were the fastest and best looking pulls I've done to date. With that large of a change in such a short time, I strongly believe conventional work had a lot to do with that.
For my accessories, I do a lot of GCB GM's (usually sets of 5, after my MESQDL movement), and on DESQDL days I do a lot of back raises (with a doubled band and DB, or with a loaded bar on my back). I dropped GHR's for back raises for the last 6 weeks or so, and when I did GHR's on Wednesday I was stronger, too.
I also started to hammer my rowing movements (DB rows with 135's for 8, which means I'm working hard, instead of my usual 95 pound crap), as well as bringing up my ab movements; I do my GHR situps with a 45 behind my head. 3x10 is about all I can manage here, and they are all fighters. Sidebends I do as well, again, heavy, 135's for 8, and will start using heavier db's on Saturdays in Spokane (squatting with Mikesell and the rest of the IG crew).
Hamstring work will come in during the GM's and back raises, as well as GHR's, and we do a lot of KB work...swings for time (which is a killer, especially for the glutes), and snatches or cleans starting in a sumo position with the KB's starting at a deadstop on the floor. KB's are great and fun.
Upper back work is taken care of with the rows (usually DB rows, CSR or Pendlay rows) and the use of weighted chin-ups. I like chin-ups, a lot, and started doing a few sets of 5 after benching and will add weight to them as I feel able to. I really like the chin-ups; they recreate that feeling of flexing your lats when you get setup to pull -an extremely important aspect of pulling. Cressey had a great article on T-Nation about using your lats for squatting and pulling, by the way. Highly recommended (in addition to his MM and Robertsons Inside-Out package)!
Grip work is done by never using straps, even on sidebends and rows or pulls, and, through block work. We have a grip kit similar to the one offered at Elite (our female lifter, Thor, welded us our own set) and we use it twice a week. The other days are usually used for sand-digs, which are great for finger strength, and if you rotate and bend your fist in the sand it's great for elbow and wrist stuff. It only takes a few minutes, and the benefits are huge.
As it stands now, I like sumo speed pulls against bands for speed, but, I don't like how bands feel at lockout, being that the bar won't move in a straight up-and-down line like the bands do, so they don't let me lockout the way I do with straight weight. Which is why (tada!) I do speed pulls against chain, too. Still offers accomodating resistance, but, allows the bar to move in a more natural curve (without the grounding effect). We also use sumo pulls while standing on cinder blocks for a ME movement. These are usually done with straight weight. Sumo pulls for triples against chain are also a favorite, typically done as a second movement on MESQDL days.
To give you an idea of how we structure things in a week, look at this:
Monday:
-ME Bench movement (shirt, boards, rev. band)
-Upper-end movement (boards, lockouts)
-Lats (Pendlay or DB)
-Chinups
Wednesday:
-DEDL (blocks, bands, chain, sumo or conventional in 3 week waves)
-GHR
-Back raises [OR] KB swings for time
-GHR situps
-Sidebends
Friday:
-DB/BS press (usually light, 3x20)
-Lats (CSR)
-Chinups
-Shrug movement (bar, DB, or kelso/csr)
Saturday:
-MESQDL movement (suit work, specialty bar box squats narrow, etc.)
-DL with chain (for triples) [OR] GCB GM's (for 5's)
-Rev. hyper (done heavy)
-GHR situps
That's it. Add in a warm-up before, stretching after, and grip work where you see fit, and that's how we train (while in-season, out of season is a different story).
Whew, very long-winded, I know, but atleast it gives you some food for thought. I've struggled with pulling for, well, forever, but things are finally starting to come around. To make that happen, though, I had to stop caring about the little shit and start hammering the important shit. It has made all of the difference in the world.
***
Leah, you owe me a cookie.