Starting Strength, 3rd Edition - Mark Rippetoe [84]
The knurl of the bar might also be a problem for your shins if it starts in too close to the middle. A standard Olympic weightlifting bar and most power bars have an opening in the knurl that is about 16.5 inches wide, and this is usually sufficient to accommodate the stance widths of all but the tallest people. Some bars are manufactured with no thought given to the possibility that they might someday be used to deadlift. Don’t use these bars.
Foot placement has been discussed above. In a deadlift, you are pushing the floor, not lowering the hips as in a squat, and you must set your stance accordingly. If your stance is too wide, your legs will either rub your thumbs on the way up or force your grip out wider to avoid being rubbed. The wider the grip, the farther the bar has to travel to lock out at the top. The grip and the stance are interrelated in that your stance must be set to allow the best grip, and the best grip for the deadlift is one that allows your arms to hang as straight down from the shoulders as possible when viewed from the front, i.e. the closest grip possible, in order to make the shortest possible distance from the floor to lockout for the bar. Too wide a stance necessitates too wide a grip and confers no mechanical advantage. If you’re thinking that since we squat with a wider stance, we should pull with a wider stance, don’t think that. We are not squatting; we are pushing the floor with the feet, an entirely different thing.
Figure 4-38. The different bar heights produced by different grip widths. A narrower grip reduces the distance the bar has to travel. Note the position of the bar relative to the lower rack pin.
Too narrow a stance is not a thing encountered very often. There have been great deadlifters – Vince Anello and George Hechter come to mind – who pulled with a very narrow stance, with heels nearly touching and knees out. This is called a “frog stance,” and many lifters have used it effectively. We learned the knees-out position in Step 3 of our deadlift method. In the Squat chapter, we discussed at length the advantages of externally rotating the femurs for its effects on depth, the ability to lock the pelvis and the lower back together, and the stretch reflex (see discussion here). This concept is also applicable in movements – such as starting a pull from the floor – that don’t elicit a stretch reflex. If a hip extension is involved in the movement, the lower back obviously needs to be locked with the pelvis and in hard extension, but what is less obvious is the role of the adductors and external rotators. If the knees-out position can tighten up the groin muscles, they can function more effectively as both back-angle anchors and hip extensors in the pull. Since hip extension is involved in any pull, a knees-out position can improve the extensors’ participation in the pull. Olympic weightlifters often employ this knees-out starting position to fix problems off the floor and to allow for a better back angle.
Figure 4-39. Note the toes-out position of the stances of both Vince Anello and George Hechter. The knees-out position this stance enabled these massively strong men to get more out of their pulls.
A more knees-out position also effectively shortens the distance between the bar and the hips when the knees are shoved out of the way a little. This modification of the effective length of the thighs – similar to the effects of a snatch grip or a sumo stance, where the angle acts to shorten the effective length of an otherwise fixed segment – makes a more vertical bar path easier to obtain off the floor. This may be very important for lifters who have longer femurs and are trying to get into a better start position. (Some very good competitive deadlifters have learned to use a round upper back to produce