re: Deadlifting with Barbell vs Hex Bar

I only do hex bar deadlifts since I read this article about Ryan Flaherty. He's a trainer that has trained top athletes in all sports. He specifically talks about the "force number" and how he improves it by having his athletes do a lot of hex bar deadlifts during his sessions.

Men's Journal

"Flaherty is drawing up quant-based workout programs for tennis superstar Serena Williams, Bayern Munich midfielder Mario Götze (who scored the deciding goal for Germany in the 2014 World Cup final), USA Rugby speedster Carlin Isles, and countless Major League Baseball players and USA Track & Field Olympic athletes."

"Jared Goff of the University of California and North Dakota State’s standout Carson Wentz"

"Over several years of refining his approach to helping star athletes build power, explosiveness, and speed, he has developed a proprietary formula that yields a single crucial metric that informs everything he does.

He calls it the “Force Number.”"

"Flaherty found that the Force Number calculated from a one-rep max for the hex-bar deadlift yielded the exact same correlation as the ratio derived from force-plate treadmill numbers. He also discovered that the bigger your hex-bar deadlift, the bigger your Force Number"

"In 2014, Flaherty used the hex-bar deadlift to skyrocket Manziel’s combine numbers. Manziel arrived at Flaherty’s camp with a maximum hex lift of 530 pounds, a vertical leap of 27.5 inches, and a 5.09-second 40-yard dash. Weighing 201 pounds, his Force Number was 2.39. After two months of Flaherty’s deadlift program, Manziel had packed on eight pounds of muscle—and could lift 680 pounds for a Force Number of 3.2. Official combine stats recorded Manziel with a 31.5-inch vertical leap and a 4.68-second 40-yard dash, an improvement of about 0.4 second."

there are also plenty of trainers that do the same thing at the same level or better that like to use the sumo deadlift and box squats

i have taken a few exos certs and they are big on the trap bar. I personally like it, especially for in season but it is in no way optimal for athletes. optimal is box squats for the static overcoming dynamic method of the lift and then combined with sumo as the hinge because of the moment forces that sumo puts on your body in the transverse and frontal planes. add in reverse lunge for unilateral and its hard to beat

but optimal doesnt mean thats the only way to get the job done and for many, especially non athletes trap bar is great. I still rotate them in but they are more of a squat pattern than a hinge pattern. it is kind of a little of both but more quad dominant than traditional forms of DL


but as far as force number, for 90% of people getting your trap bar deadlift or any deadlift up to over 400 helps a ton. especially in athletics. and athlete buy in plays a big part in progress.

for non athletes, just do the one you like. I will say trap bar is not optimal for hypertrophy and you are limited by grip strength. on top of that, i see way more back injuries from trap bar than sumo and its mainly because people always repeat the myth that trap bar is safer and someone slips up on form and boom they have an issue.

Whatever is comfortable to you. If your not competing and specifically need to use a straight bar I would use the hex bar. Just for the simple fact your not bending over as much.