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Old Forum Hack Lift

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Steve Freides

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Anyone do the Hack Lift, which is a deadlift behind the back, regularly?  I don't, but I decided to pick up my warmup weight, 225, that way today - felt about the same, maybe it even felt easier.

Curious to hear if others find this a friendly DL variation.  Since I'm weak off the floor, I'm thinking of doing all my warmups/rampups this way.

Thanks.

-S-
 
I do them somewhat often and like them a lot. Done deadlift-style, I can actually use a bit more than on conventional DL. Done squat-style (low hips, flat back), they're a good assistance lift for leg drive.
 
That's interesting - that's what I felt today, like it was easier than the same weight pulled conventional.

-S-
 
For those of us with short torsos, long legs (especially femurs) and strong backs (especially flexion-tolerant ones), a hack lift with roughly the same posture as our conventional deadlift probably allows us to use more weight just due to advantageous leverages--it's like a trap bar deadlift or a jefferson lift, gets the weight right under us rather than having it slightly out in front. Thus, it can be a good 'overloading' tool, I think, though I haven't really trained it as such.
 
I've tried the hack lift several times looking for different ways to challenge the quads.

Here's the thing:  If you have shorty arms (like me), the barbell hack squat, and  less so, the Jefferson squat/dead, setups make it very challenging to maintain spinal extension.  If you have relatively long arms, which many natural DL'ers do, then they are a bit more user friendly.

Even long armed folks may subtly start to round the spine a bit as the load increases in order to improve the angle at the hip and get the bar moving off the floor.

Perhaps a better "quad focused pull" from top to bottom is the hex bar dead lift done from a substantial deficit, so that the start position is from a full squat, terminal knee flexion.  Zercher SQ's are good too, but they may start to tear up the elbows before the hips and knees are challenged fully.

Deficit TBDL for the win!  YMMV, of course.
 
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