Trap Bar Deadlift
A loaded hip hinge pulled from inside a hexagonal bar, with neutral handles sitting level with the hips.
How to do it
- Step inside the trap bar so the handles sit beside your hips, feet about hip width apart.
- Send the hips backward and fold at the waist until the handles are within reach.
- Take a neutral grip with your armpits directly over the handles and your shins near vertical.
- Pull the slack out of the bar, brace your trunk, and squeeze your lats.
- Drive through the whole foot and extend your knees and hips together until you stand tall.
- Reverse the hinge and return the bar to the floor under control.
Key technique cue
Armpits over the handles, hips not too low; take the slack out before you pull.
Common mistakes
- ✕ Starting with the hips too low, which turns the lift into a squat and stalls it at the knees.
- ✕ Letting the shoulders drift behind the handles, which drags the bar into the shins.
- ✕ Rounding the upper back to reach the handles instead of hinging to them.
- ✕ Yanking the bar off the floor before the slack is out, which spikes load on the lower back.
Benefits
- ✓ Produces greater peak force, velocity, and power than a straight bar at the same load.
- ✓ Lowers the demand on the lumbar spine and hip compared with a conventional deadlift.
- ✓ Teaches a hinge quickly because the neutral handles need less mobility.
Progression: from easier to harder
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Step 1 -
Step 2 -
Step 3 You are here - Trap Bar Deadlift
- Barbell Deadlift
- Sumo Deadlift
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Step 4
About the exercise
The trap bar deadlift lets you stand inside the bar and grip neutral handles at your sides, so the load sits closer to your center of mass than a straight bar allows. Biomechanical comparison of the two bars found the hexagonal version cut the peak resistance moments recorded at the lumbar spine, hip and ankle while raising the one at the knee, and it delivered more peak force, velocity and power across matched submaximal loads. In practice that makes it a hinge with more quadriceps involvement and less lower back demand, which is why it is so often the first deadlift taught.
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