Trap Bar Deadlift

How to do it

1. Stand inside a trap bar with your feet about hip-width apart.
2. Push your hips back and bend the knees until you can take both handles.
3. Set your back flat, chest up, arms straight at your sides.
4. Push the floor away and stand up, keeping the bar travelling straight upward.
5. Finish tall without leaning back.
6. Lower under control along the same line.

Common mistakes

• Treating it as a straight swap for a barbell deadlift. The handles sit beside you rather than in front, so the load is closer to your centre and the knees bend more — it sits between a squat and a deadlift, which is why the quadriceps lead here.
• Using the high handles by default. The raised handles shorten the range considerably; the low ones are the full version, and which you use is a choice rather than an accident of which way up the bar was left.
• Letting the bar tip forward or back. Handles either side mean the bar can rotate; keeping the weight through the middle of the foot keeps it level.
• Rounding the back to reach the handles. The same rule as any deadlift — the start is where the flat back ends.

Muscles worked

Primary

• Quads

Secondary

• Glutes
• Hamstrings