reckonerTrap bar deadlift
You stand inside this bar instead of behind it, which puts the load in line with you rather than out in front. It is the deadlift most people learn fastest and the one they load quickest, and it is a hinge for all that it feels like a squat.
Flat back, push the floor away.
- Pattern
- Hinge
- Trains
- Glutes, quads, hamstrings, spinal erectors
- Kit
- Trap bar
- Loading
- A weight you choose
- Reckoner prescribes
- 4 sets of 5 to 8 reps at RPE 8
- Progression step
- 5 kg once the top of the range is clean
- Bar
- 25 kg
- Skill
- Some technique
- Recovery cost
- Very high
- Not prescribed if you have declared
- Lower back, knee
Muscles worked
How to do it
Step into the middle of the bar
Feet about hip width, centred between the handles both ways. Standing too far forward or back tips the bar as it leaves the floor and you will chase it for the whole rep.
Hinge down and take the handles
Push the hips back and reach down for the handles rather than squatting down to them. Grip in the middle of each handle so the bar sits level.
Chest up, back flat, slack out
Pull up against the handles until everything is tight before anything moves. Flat back, push the floor away. That is the cue on your wrist and it is the same cue as every other pull.
Drive through the whole foot
Stand up. Because the load is beside you rather than in front, there is less pull dragging your chest down, so the fault to watch for is the hips shooting up rather than the back rounding.
Lower it under control
Push the hips back and let the bar come down beside your legs. Set it down, reset, pull again.
What goes wrong
Squatting it instead of hinging it
The handles sit beside your hips, which makes it very easy to drop straight down and stand straight up with almost nothing happening at the hip. If your shins are pushed a long way forward at the bottom, you are doing a heavy leg press with your hands full. Start the movement by pushing the hips back.
Switching between the high and low handles set to set
Most trap bars have two handle heights, and the higher pair shortens the pull. That is a legitimate choice and it is a different range of motion, so a set on one and a set on the other are not the same lift. Pick a height and stay on it for the block.
Choosing it because somebody called it the safe deadlift
Measured against a straight bar under submaximal loads, the hexagonal bar produced lower peak moments at the lumbar spine, the hip and the ankle, and a higher peak moment at the knee1. A lower demand on the spine is a lower demand, not a promise, and it arrives with more asked of the knees. Pick this bar because it suits how you are built, not because of the word safe.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, from 100 kg, run through the real engine. Nothing below was typed in: the prescription, the decision and the sentence beside it all come from the same code that writes your week.
| Week | Prescribed | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 x 5 at 100 kg | More reps 5 → 6 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 2 | 4 x 6 at 100 kg | More reps 6 → 7 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 3 | 4 x 7 at 100 kg | More reps 7 → 8 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 4 | 4 x 8 at 100 kg | Load up 100 kg → 105 kgYou hit the top of the range at RPE 7, so the bar goes up 5 kg to 105 kg and reps reset to five. |
| 5 | 4 x 5 at 105 kg | Deload 40% of sets offFive weeks of building, then one week lighter. About 40% of the sets come off. The load holds and your reps stay where you earned them, so you keep the strength and lose the fatigue. |
| 6 | 2 x 5 at 105 kg | More reps 5 → 6 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. The lighter week is over, so this is back to four sets. |
Real engine output, not an illustration. Every row was produced by running the engine itself when this page was generated.
The full rule, and why the reps move before the load does, is in how Reckoner decides to add weight.
Questions people ask
Trap bar or straight bar?
Lifters handled a heavier one repetition maximum on the hexagonal bar than on the straight bar, and produced greater peak force, velocity and power across submaximal loads1. If what you want is to load a hinge and get strong at it, this is the easier bar to do that with. If you want to compete in the deadlift, the straight bar is the lift you are competing in.
Does Reckoner know this bar is heavier than a straight one?
Yes. The bar's own weight is recorded against this movement in the library and it is not the same number as a straight barbell carries, so the load you are given is the total on the floor rather than the plates on their own.
Can a block be built around this lift?
Yes. It is one of the movements Reckoner will anchor a block on. It also comes out of your plan entirely if you declare a lower back or a knee restriction in setup.
Similar movements
Reckoner eases the load first when this lift stalls, and offers one of these only if it stalls again after that. A lift already as light as your kit goes has no load left to ease, so the offer comes straight away. Each of them has a page.
Sources
- Swinton and colleagues, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2011. A biomechanical analysis of straight and hexagonal barbell deadlifts using submaximal loads a heavier one repetition maximum on the hexagonal bar than the straight bar, lower peak moments at the lumbar spine, hip and ankle with a higher peak moment at the knee, and greater peak force, velocity and power across submaximal loads. Flagged as older than five years and kept because no later comparison of the two bars replaces it