Check out this video from Joe DeFranco…scroll to :42 seconds into the video and you can see an example of trap bar jumps.
My Take (but you should form your own conclusions):
1. The hex bar deadlift is clearly the safer lift as it reduces the moment on the lumbar spine.
2. That said, it also reduces the moment on the hip joint (while increasing the moment on the knee and ankle joints).
3. As I mentioned in my Topics of the Week article that I linked above, I still prefer the conventional deadlift because I use the full squat as my knee dominant exercise so I want a deadlift variation that complements the full squat and acts more on the hips.
4. Although the peak power levels are very impressive for the submaximal deadlifts (where you rise up onto the toes), you still spend a large percentage of the time decelerating the load which means reduced muscular tension through end range hip extension (though 87% of the 80% 1RM deadilft was indeed spent accelerating, so only the last 13% of end range hip extension is spent decelerating).
5. For this reason elastic bands could be used to increase tension on the hip extensors toward end range hip extension.
6. For this reason I like the jump squat and hang clean (or even the trap bar jump and possibly the deadlift plus shrug/calf raise) as I don’t believe they’d involve any deceleration at the top of the lift (though I confess that I haven’t located studies that address this issue…but nonetheless studies addressing this likely exist).
Whenever I watch a DeFranco video I get all jacked up and want to train!
26 Responses to “Straight Bar Deadlift versus Hex Bar Deadlift”
Elsbeth Vaino says: 
