usingthisonce asked What’s the benefit of rolling a bar toward you before a deadlift?
An there were some interesting answers.
The psycholodical reason by dotjpg:
I do it for 1rm attempts, it’s purely a psychological thing for me. If I can see the bar moving it’s a less daunting prospect to try and pick it up than if it’s just sitting there, sinking into the ground, mocking me.
The argument for better leverage in Olympic lifts by HeresWhyYouSuck:
My oly lifting coach has us roll the bar towards ourselves before breaking from the ground, as a cue to continue to pull the bar into the body for better leverage. It almost seems to give it a little momentum to help break from the ground.
The argument for bigger breath by threewhitelights:
I can take a MUCH bigger breath and expand my stomach MUCH more when the bar is a foot or so in front of my legs. I keep that position, lock my back, and drag the bar back into me as I drop my hips. In addition, it makes it so I can start my pull less than a second after my hips drop (I’m already set up and tight) so I can use the stretch reflex a lot more.
I find it helps to get my upper back into the locked position.
The argument for tighter back by toomanypumpfakes:
I think it helps me stay tighter (lats and pulling back and such) and also I can’t just walk up to a bar and pull it. I end up psyching myself out. But walking up, roll out, roll in I better fucking pull otherwise my shins will hurt 🙁
Here is what Mark Rippetoe has to say about this:
Changing the direction of motion requires force, in the same way that changing the velocity requires force. This change during a kipping pullup is assisted by the stretch reflex inherent in the eccentric component of the down-stroke. But there is no down stroke in a deadlift. If you roll the bar toward you at the start of a pull from the floor, you are 1.) introducing a horizontal motion component that will have to be dampened before the vertical bar path can be expressed, and we do in fact want the bar to go up, and 2.) pulling from a position where the skeleton cannot transfer force optimally to the bar.
[…]
Rolling the bar back in to the mid-foot before the bar leaves the ground is indeed what most lifters do. It can be done, albeit with less exact reproducibility than without the roll. My point is that horizontal movement is not useful in terms of making the bar go up, and that since the bar is going to leave the ground most efficiently from a position where the bar is directly over the mid-foot and directly under the scapulas, why not just put it there to begin with and call that the starting position?
