Trap-bar deadlift test
The trap bar is not a compromise version of a deadlift. For a field athlete it is often the better lift outright: lower spinal shear, far easier to coach, and a movement pattern that sits closer to acceleration than a conventional pull does.
The trap-bar deadlift is the lower-body strength test in the AFL and cricket batteries, chosen over a back squat for lower spinal shear, easier coaching at scale, and closer carry-over to acceleration.
Use high handles and keep them consistent — high and low handles are different lifts and produce different numbers.
The point of the test
Whole-body pulling strength — the lift with the clearest carry-over to accelerating.
Why it is in the Train Smart battery: Whole-body pulling strength — the lift that carries over to acceleration.
How to run it
High handles, flat back, drive the floor away. Work up in singles with full rest. A 3RM entered here is converted for you.
- What you need
- A trap bar (hex bar) · High handles for testing, used consistently · Full rest between singles
What is a good score?
We are not going to publish a precise-looking table for this test. Reported ranges vary too much with protocol, equipment, level, age and sex for a single table to be honest, and most of the tables in circulation for it are uncited copies of each other.
The comparison that actually changes your training is against your own last score. That is not a consolation prize — it is what the monitoring literature supports, and it is what Train Smart does: re-test every eight weeks under the same conditions and let the trend, not the percentile, drive the program. The papers behind that are here.
What people get wrong
Most of the variation between two tests is protocol, not fitness. These are the faults that make one score incomparable to the last.
- Switching between high and low handles.
- They are different lifts and different numbers. Pick one — high handles for testing — and stay there.
- Letting the back round.
- Flat back, chest up, drive the floor away. A rounded pull is both a worse test and a worse idea.
- Bouncing reps off the floor on a 3RM.
- Each rep from a dead stop, or the number is inflated.
How to actually move the number
The trap bar responds well to moderate reps at high intent — sets of three to five moved fast — rather than to grinding singles. That also happens to be what makes it useful for sport: the goal is force produced quickly, not just force.
Pair it with single-leg work. A large trap-bar number with no single-leg strength underneath it does not transfer, because sport is played on one leg at a time.
trap bar deadlift 1RM — questions
Is a trap-bar deadlift easier than a conventional deadlift?
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OpenKnow your number. Now train for it.
Train Smart re-tests you every eight weeks on your sport’s own battery — and the results re-price your training weights and reset your conditioning paces automatically.
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