Tip & Technique: SumoDeadliftHighPull

Plain and simple. A rowing machine is one of the best things you can use to help your body. You’re going to see huge improvements in your cardiovascular capacity, posture, anaerobic threshold, neuromuscular connection, you name it. Find a rowing machine. Use it. If you can’t, well, that’s where the SumoDeadliftHighPull (SDHP) comes in. This is how we get all those benefits and joint movements when we don’t have easy access to a rower. Like a burpee or thruster, these are performed one after another with no pause in between. As with anything you’re attempting in your training, proceed with caution! Begin with a wide stance, toes rotated slightly out (Sumo). Hold the bar (Men begin with 45# Olympic bar. Women begin with 30# straight bar) down in front of you with your hands very close together, pronated grip (palms facing back towards your body in this posture). As far as hand spacing goes, if you extend your thumbs out towards each other while you’re holding the bar, the tips should just barely touch each other. From here, keeping a neutral spine, move your hips straight out behind you as far as you can, allowing the knees to bend as they have to (as in a deadlift). The bar should be hanging at about the midpoint of your shin. Now, to begin the movement, explosively thrust your hips forward into full upright (extended) position. When, and ONLY WHEN, your hips snap back to full extension, shrug and row the bar up with speed so that by the time you’ve pulled it to your sternum, it has enough momentum of its own to travel up to chin level (high pull). Allow the bar to float back down to its start position at shin level and do it all over again. TIPS:

• Keep the bar as close to your body as possible! Elbows come up and out to the sides of your body during the row. This is not a reverse curl folks.
• In the downward phase, make triple sure that you’re bending from the hip, not the back. The spine should remain neutral the whole time.
• Do not let the bar jerk you or your arms down. You’ll injure your elbows and shoulders like that. Allow it to fall as quickly as possible, staying right with it the whole way.
• The bar should float up to the chin. Don’t be rowing it at the point your elbows come up above the shoulder. They’re just along for the ride at that point.

“Hey Cabbie, how do ya get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice, practice, practice.