Sculpt Stronger Legs and Core with Sweeping Deadlifts

As a former powerlifter, I’ve done more than my fair share of deadlifts. In fact, I’d say the deadlift is my favorite barbell exercise. Based on my experience, which comes from my 30-plus years as a personal trainer, deadlifts are unbeatable for building posterior chain size and strength.

This isn’t just my opinion, either. Research published on PubMed supports the effectiveness of the barbell deadlift (1).

Additionally, deadlifts are an incredibly functional exercise. After all, what’s more functional than lifting a heavy object off the floor? Deadlifts teach you how to perform this maneuver safely, reducing your risk of back injury.

However, I also recognize that some people are unable to engage their lats during deadlifts or don’t feel they are working as hard as they should. Others want more variety in their workouts. While deadlifts are a powerful exercise, doing them all the time could cause boredom and burnout.

The good news is that there is an easy fix to these problems – sweeping deadlifts.

In this guide, I reveal how to do this unique deadlift variation and share a few different options to try.

Sweeping Deadlifts Correct Form  

Sweeping deadlifts are a moderately technical exercise. As such, your form really matters. Doing them correctly means you’ll experience all the amazing benefits this exercise has to offer. But, do them wrong, and you could end up injured, and your workouts won’t be as effective.

So, get the most from sweeping deadlifts by following these step-by-step instructions.

1. Load your barbell with an appropriate weight. Use round plates if available.
2. Attach one end of a resistance band to the center of your barbell. Fix the other to an immovable floor-level object, e.g., a heavy dumbbell, squat rack, dumbbell rack, etc.
3. Stand behind your barbell with your feet hip-width apart.
4. Reach down and hold the barbell with a shoulder-width double overhand or mixed grip. Engage your lats by rolling the bar back toward your toes.
5. Straighten your arms, brace your core, and drop your hips so they’re lower than your shoulders. Pull your shoulders down and back and lift your chest.
6. Drive your feet into the floor and stand up. Use your lats to keep the bar pressed back toward your legs.
7. Pause in the upright position, flexing your lats as hard as possible.
8. Bend your knees, push your hips back, and lower the bar down the front of your legs to the floor. Keep your lats engaged by pressing the bar backward.
9. Reset your core and grip, and repeat.
10. Continue for the prescribed number of reps.

Sweeping Deadlifts: Muscles Worked

Sweeping deadlifts are a compound exercise involving multiple upper and lower body muscles. The main muscles trained during this exercise are:

• Hamstrings
• Gluteus maximus
• Quadriceps
• Erector spinae
• Core
• Latissimus dorsi
• Trapezius
• Rhomboids
• Deltoids
• Triceps
• Biceps
• Forearms

Pro-Trainer Tips

Get more from sweeping deadlifts with these tried-and-tested pro-trainer tips:

• Use gym chalk to stop your hands from slipping.
• Keep pressing the barbell back toward your legs throughout.
• Use a light/moderate weight so you can focus on keeping your lats engaged.
• Roll the bar forward or back to adjust the tension on the band.
• Experiment with your grip to find what feels most effective and comfortable.
• Alternate your hands when doing this exercise with a mixed grip.
• Do this exercise before conventional deadlifts to fire up your lats and boost performance.

Sweeping Deadlifts Mistakes to Avoid

Make sweeping deadlifts as safe and effective as possible by avoiding these common mistakes:

Rounding Your Lower Back

A rounded lower back is a weak lower back. Losing your lumbar arch puts unwanted stress on your intervertebral discs and ligaments, significantly increasing your risk of injury (2). Keep your chest up, your core braced, and your lower back slightly but tightly arched throughout this exercise. Stop your set if you feel your lower back starting to arch.

Losing Tension in Your Lats

If you can’t feel your lats during this exercise, you probably aren’t pushing the bar back toward your legs enough. Reduce the load so you can focus on this part of the exercise. Invariably, loss of “lat feel” comes from trying to lift too much weight.

Bending Your Arms

Some lifters try to bend their arms during deadlifts. This is a mistake because a) bending your arms will not help you lift more weight, and b) you could tear your biceps, especially with a mixed grip.

Make sure you keep your arms straight during each and every rep. Flex your triceps and imagine your arms as cables and your hands as hooks with no function other than connecting you to the barbell.

Related: 5 Things You Need to Stop Doing If Your Deadlift Form Is Compromised

Using Too Much Weight

The main focus of sweeping deadlifts should be pressing the bar back toward your legs. This is much more difficult when you’ve got a lot of weight on the bar.

By all means go heavy, but don’t use so much weight that you lose sight of the purpose of this exercise. If you cannot press the bar back, you are using too much weight, and the exercise won’t be as effective as it should be.

Not Rotating Your Grip

Most deadlifters use a mixed grip. This helps to stop the bar rolling out of your fingers. However, always using the same grip orientation, e.g., left hand under, right hand over, can lead to muscle and strength imbalances.

Personally, I prefer to use a double overhand grip for sweeping deadlifts as I feel it’s the best way to engage the lats. However, if you choose to use a mixed grip, make sure you switch your hands around set by set. This will help prevent making any muscle imbalances worse.

Sweeping Deadlifts Benefits

Not sure if sweeping deadlifts deserve a place in your workouts? Consider these benefits and then decide.

Better Your Deadlift Technique

Underactive lats will have a significant impact on your deadlift performance. Weak lats mean the barbell is more likely to swing away from your legs, pulling you forward onto your toes and off balance.

Sweeping deadlifts teach you how to keep your lats engaged so the weight stays closer to your legs, reinforcing correct deadlift form.

Bigger, Stronger Lats

Pulldowns, rows, and pull-ups aren’t the only ways to increase the size and strength of your lats. In fact, while these exercises are undeniably effective, they are also very reliant on your biceps. Consequently, some people feel their arms working more than their back muscles.

Sweeping deadlifts work your lats without using your biceps. They’re also an excellent exercise for improving your mind-muscle connection.

Workout Variety

Deadlifts are a fantastic exercise. However, like any weightlifting movement, they can become boring if you do them too often. Adding sweeping deadlifts to your workouts will make your workouts less repetitive, enhancing enjoyment and motivation.

Sweeping Deadlifts Variations

While I’m a massive fan of the barbell sweeping deadlift, that doesn’t mean it’s the only version of this exercise. Here are three variations of the sweeping deadlift. Use these exercises for variety and if the barbell version is impractical or unavailable.

Sweeping Kettlebell Deadlift

No barbell? No problem! You can do sweeping deadlifts with a kettlebell. This is an excellent option for home workouts or anyone who finds deadlifting with a barbell awkward. The more compact weight is generally easier to handle.

Steps:

1. Loop your resistance band through the handle of your kettlebell. Attach the other end to an immovable anchor.
2. Stand astride your kettlebell with your feet between shoulder and hip-width apart.
3. Bend over and grip the top of your kettlebell.
4. Drop your hips, lift your chest, and brace your core.
5. Drive your feet into the floor and stand up, pressing the kettlebell back toward your legs by flexing your lats.
6. Lower the weight back to the floor and repeat.

2. Sweeping Romanian Deadlift

Romanian deadlifts (RDLs) are one of the most effective posterior chain exercises around. However, they generally don’t do much for your lats. That all changes when you add a resistance band and turn them into sweeping RDLs.

Steps:

1. Load your barbell with an appropriate weight.
2. Attach one end of a resistance band to the center of your barbell. Fix the other end to an immovable floor-level object.
3. Pick up your barbell and hold with a mixed or double overhand grip.
4. Stand with your feet about hip-width apart, knees slightly bent.
5. Pressing the barbell back, hinge forward from the hips, and lower the bar down the front of your legs. Keep your lats engaged throughout.
6. Drive your hips forward and stand back up.
7. Continue for the required number of reps.

3. Straight-Arm Pulldowns

Straight-arm pulldowns don’t look a lot like sweeping deadlifts, but they work in much the same way. This is an excellent exercise for isolating the lats. However, they’re far easier to learn than sweeping deadlifts. Use this exercise to practice engaging your lats before progressing to sweeping deadlifts.

Steps:

1. Attach a straight bar to your lat pulldown machine.
2. Hold the bar with an overhand, slightly wider than shoulder-width grip.
3. Brace your core and flex your knees and hips slightly.
4. Keeping your arms straight and rigid, flex your lats and press the bar down in an arc to your thighs.
5. Return to the starting position and repeat.

FAQ’s

Do you have a question about sweeping deadlifts? No problem, because I’ve got the answers! However, please drop me a line in the comment section below if you need more information.

1. Will sweeping deadlifts improve my deadlift?

Sweeping deadlifts are an excellent accessory exercise for conventional deadlifts. They train you to engage your lats and keep the weight close to your legs. This improves your mechanical efficiency so you can lift more weight. Adding sweeping deadlifts to your workouts will help you score a new 1RM!

2. What rep/set scheme should I use?

In my experience, sweeping deadlifts work best when you do them for low to medium reps using moderate to heavy weights. Sets of 4-8 reps work very well. 3-5 sets should be sufficient for most lifters. If you feel you need to do more, you are probably resting too long between sets or stopping too far from failure.

3. I find it really hard to keep the band tight during sweeping deadlifts. Is this normal?

This common problem suggests you aren’t keeping your lats engaged. Try lowering the weight and moving forward to reduce the tension in your resistance band. Focus on developing your mind-muscle connection and only add weight/band tension when your lats are firing correctly.

Closing Thoughts

You probably won’t see many people doing sweeping deadlifts. That’s a shame because they’re a uniquely effect exercise for the entire posterior chain. I use them to teach proper lat engagement for conventional deadlifts. However, they’re also a great exercise in their own right.

So, whether you want to perfect your deadlift technique or just want a new way to train your lats, it’s time to give sweeping deadlifts a try. They’re a big hit with my personal training clients, and I’m confident you’ll like them, too.

References:

1. Martín-Fuentes I, Oliva-Lozano JM, Muyor JM. Electromyographic activity in deadlift exercise and its variants. A systematic review. PLoS One. 2020 Feb 27;15(2):e0229507. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0229507. PMID: 32107499; PMCID: PMC7046193.
2. Saraceni N, Kent P, Ng L, Campbell A, Straker L, O’Sullivan P. To Flex or Not to Flex? Is There a Relationship Between Lumbar Spine Flexion During Lifting and Low Back Pain? A Systematic Review With Meta-analysis. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2020 Mar;50(3):121-130. doi: 10.2519/jospt.2020.9218. Epub 2019 Nov 28. PMID: 31775556.

Featured Image via @tnation on YouTube!

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