Richard Hawthorne has deadlifted almost five times his bodyweight. Pound for pound, Richard is the strongest deadlifter in the world. Among women powerlifters, Stephanie Cohen is the strongest pound for pound deadlifter in the world. She is immensely strong and has deadlifted over four times her bodyweight. Not only are Richard and Stephanie the strongest deadlifters, they both have a similar philosophy in terms of slowly building up tension in their legs, back, and body, until the bar slowly starts to come off the floor. It initially looks like they don’t have enough power to complete the lift, but the bar keeps moving until it reaches lockout. You can see them lift in the following videos
Richard Hawthorne
.
.
Stephanie Cohen (note: the lift starts at about 50 sec. into the video).
Both Richard and Stephanie are sometime accused of being “slow off the floor” with their deadlift. If you listen to them teach how to deadlift, being slow off the floor isn’t a matter of weakness, it’s a matter of a preferential technique that works for them.
Richard prefers the word “drive” rather than “explosion.” When using drive, tension builds up and increases throughout the lift. Richard will sometime refer to this as compressive strength. The reason he prefers this is that when lifters try to emphasize explosiveness, the power is quickly released and can dissipate before the lift is completed. Likewise, Stephanie prefers to slowly get her body in perfect position for a deadlift so that every part of her body is leveraged for greatest advantage. From there, she gives her muscles time to build up tension until the bar slowly starts to move and accelerate to lockout.
You will also hear both Richard and Stephanie emphasize the need for leg drive and to “push the feet down into the floor” rather than trying to pull up on the bar. Richard often tells lifters to think of the deadlift as a push instead of a pull, which simply means to push your feet into the floor to stand up instead of trying to stand up by straightening up with your back.
You can hear Richard explain these concepts in the next video if you fast forward to 10:15 to 11:40.
Richard Hawthorne: Start at 10:15
.
.
Stefi Cohen’s Gradual Build Up of Drive and Power
Stefi Cohen explains the fairly gradual build up of energy in her muscles to reach maximum lifting power. Fast forward to 7:10 in the video below for her explanation of this.
Stefi Cohen: Start at 7:10
Not everyone is the same. Some lifters feel much more powerful with the concept of exploding off the floor when deadlifting. Others, like Richard and Stephanie prefer to let tension build up until they have enough drive to slowly get the bar moving and then sustain that drive until lockout. If you want to know whether you are better off by using a more explosive pull or a slower pull, you need to try both methods and stick with what works best. Best of training to you.