Does an elevated deadlift increase or decrease the range of motion?

In this setup it increases it. You are standing on the platforms and the bell is on the floor between them, so the handle starts below your feet and there is more distance to cover, not less. The version that decreases range is the reverse arrangement, with the weight raised on blocks and you on the ground.

Is this the same as a deficit deadlift?

Yes, that is the more common name for it. A deficit means the lifter stands raised and the weight does not, which is exactly what the clip shows. Searching for deficit deadlift will find you far more than searching for elevated deadlift, which usually turns up the opposite setup.

What muscles does the deficit kettlebell deadlift work?

The hamstrings and glutes straighten your hips and do the lifting. Your lower back stops your torso changing shape, and your abs work against a weight that is hanging out in front of you. In the one session where a deficit was measured against a floor pull, the front of the thigh worked harder too, which surprises people who file this under back of the legs and leave it there.

How high should the platforms be?

Low enough that you can reach the handle with your back flat and your chest still facing forward, and no higher. There is no correct number, because the height that does this to one person does nothing to another. If you are unsure, start with nothing under your feet and find out where the floor version stops working first.

Do deficit deadlifts make you stronger off the floor?

That is the reason people give for doing them and it has never been tested. No published study has trained one group on deficits, left another group off them, and compared what happened to the start of the pull. What has been measured is a single session showing more movement at every joint and more work in the glutes and thigh, which is a reason to expect something, not evidence that it happened.

Are deficit deadlifts bad for your lower back?

Nobody has counted injuries in people who do them against people who do not, so there is no honest number to give you. The one session that measured it found no significant difference in lower back muscle activity between the deficit, the floor and the block versions, which is worth knowing but is not the same as a measurement of what the spine is carrying. If something hurts and keeps hurting, that is a question for a physiotherapist.

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Kettlebell · beginner · upper legs

Kettlebell elevated deadlift

Also called Deficit kettlebell deadlift, Kettlebell deficit deadlift, Elevated kettlebell deadlift, Deficit pull.

The short answer

Look at where the platforms are in the clip. The lifter is standing on them and the kettlebell is on the floor in the gap between them, so the handle starts below foot level rather than level with it. That makes the pull longer than an ordinary kettlebell deadlift, and every inch of the difference sits at the very bottom, where the hips are already folded furthest. Hamstrings and glutes straighten the hips and stand it up; the job of your lower back is to keep your torso the same shape from the first inch to the last.

How to do it

Step oneStand on two low platforms or plate stacks with a kettlebell on the floor in the gap between them, feet hip-width apart.
Step twoHinge at the hips and grasp the kettlebell handle with both hands.
Step threeKeeping your back flat and chest up, drive through your heels to stand upright.
Step fourSqueeze your glutes at the top of the movement.
Step fiveLower the kettlebell back to the floor between the platforms with control.

What usually goes wrong

Each starts with what you would notice.

Your back curves in the last few inches before your hands reach the handle.

WhyThe platforms added range at exactly the point where your hips stop folding, so the last part of the reach comes out of your spine instead. This is the fault the setup is built to provoke, because the range it adds is the range where position is hardest to keep.

FixTake the platforms down, or step off them and pull from the floor. Height is the dose here, and the right amount is the most you can reach the handle from with your chest still facing forward rather than down.

Your heels feel like they are hanging over the back of the step.

WhyA platform is a smaller surface than a floor, and reaching further down sends your weight toward its edges. Standing raised also removes the option of shuffling your feet mid-set, so a foot that started half-on stays half-on for every rep.

FixSet your feet with the whole foot on the platform, heel included, and check that before the first rep rather than after the third. If nothing you have is big enough for a whole foot, that is the answer about whether to use it.

You had to stand wider than you normally would to fit on the platforms.

WhyThe equipment is choosing your stance. Two platforms with a bell-sized gap between them puts your feet where the gap ends, not where you would have put them.

FixPlace the platforms to your own stance first, stand on them, then slide the bell into the gap last. The gap only has to be wide enough for the bell and your hands, not for your feet to clear.

The last session felt fine so you stacked something higher under your feet.

WhyPlatform height is being treated as though it were load, and it is not the same variable. Weight makes every part of the rep heavier; height only makes the bottom deeper, which is the one part of the rep that was already the limit.

FixMove one thing per session. If the height goes up, the bell comes down, and the rep you should be watching is the first one, at the bottom, not the last one at the top.

Why the name says elevated and the setup says the opposite

This is worth clearing up first, because the word is doing the opposite of its usual job here and it will cost you a search otherwise. Almost everywhere else, an elevated deadlift means the weight has been raised on blocks or in a rack so that the pull starts higher and covers less distance. Look up the term and that is what you will get.

What the clip shows is the other arrangement entirely. The bell is on the ground and the lifter is the thing that has been raised, which lengthens the pull rather than trimming it. The name for that is a deficit, and it is what you should search for if you want more on the setup.

One is not a variation of the other, they are opposite ends of the same dial. Raising the weight cuts range off the bottom; raising yourself adds range to the bottom. If you came here for the shorter version, this is not it.

On the platforms or on the floor

The platform height is the whole of the difference. Stand hip width with the bell between your ankles either way, hold the same handle, stand up the same way; the only thing that changed is how much further down the handle is when you reach it.

Where that difference lands matters more than how big it is. It is all at the start, in the position where your torso is closest to horizontal and your hamstrings are at their longest, so it makes the hardest part of the movement bigger and leaves the easy part alone. That is either the reason to do it or the reason not to, depending on whether you can hold a flat back down there.

It also means the honest test is not whether you finished the set. It is what the bottom of the first rep looked like. A deficit that you reach by rounding is not training a longer hinge, it is training your spine to make up the shortfall, and the platform is what handed it the job.

What the extra range has and has not been shown to do

Deficit pulls come with a standard set of promises: better off the floor, more hamstring, more glute. There is one piece of direct evidence and it is smaller than the promises are.

20 trained lifters were filmed and wired up doing three barbell versions at one submaximal weight: from the floor, from four-inch blocks, and standing on a four-inch platform. The platform version produced significantly greater starting joint angles and more movement at the ankle, knee, hip and trunk than either of the others, which is the geometry confirming itself. Measured muscle activity came out higher in the glutes than in either of the other two, higher in the front of the thigh than in either, and higher in the hamstring than in the block version. Activity in the lower back muscles showed no significant difference across the three.

Now the caveats, because they are most of the story. That was a conference abstract rather than a full paper, it used a barbell and a narrow stance rather than a kettlebell, it measured one session rather than months of training, and what a muscle does in one session tells you nothing about what it grows into. Nobody has run the study where one group trains deficits, another does not, and someone checks afterwards whether the first group pulls better off the floor. So the mechanism is real and the promised outcome is untested.

The other thing worth knowing is what the range-of-motion research does not say. When training through a full range has been compared with training through part of one, full range has come out ahead, by a moderate margin in one review and by a margin its authors called trivial to small in another. Every one of those comparisons was full range against less than full. None of them tested more than full, which is what a deficit is. "Full beat partial" is not evidence that extra beats full, and anyone selling you a deficit on those studies is quoting the wrong end of them.

What it is for

The elevated kettlebell deadlift is pulled with the lifter standing on platforms and the bell on the floor between them, targeting the hamstrings. Starting below your own feet lengthens the pull rather than shortening it, which is the reason to use it once floor height has stopped asking much of your hips.

Questions people ask

Does an elevated deadlift increase or decrease the range of motion?: In this setup it increases it. You are standing on the platforms and the bell is on the floor between them, so the handle starts below your feet and there is more distance to cover, not less. The version that decreases range is the reverse arrangement, with the weight raised on blocks and you on the ground.
Is this the same as a deficit deadlift?: Yes, that is the more common name for it. A deficit means the lifter stands raised and the weight does not, which is exactly what the clip shows. Searching for deficit deadlift will find you far more than searching for elevated deadlift, which usually turns up the opposite setup.
What muscles does the deficit kettlebell deadlift work?: The hamstrings and glutes straighten your hips and do the lifting. Your lower back stops your torso changing shape, and your abs work against a weight that is hanging out in front of you. In the one session where a deficit was measured against a floor pull, the front of the thigh worked harder too, which surprises people who file this under back of the legs and leave it there.
How high should the platforms be?: Low enough that you can reach the handle with your back flat and your chest still facing forward, and no higher. There is no correct number, because the height that does this to one person does nothing to another. If you are unsure, start with nothing under your feet and find out where the floor version stops working first.
Do deficit deadlifts make you stronger off the floor?: That is the reason people give for doing them and it has never been tested. No published study has trained one group on deficits, left another group off them, and compared what happened to the start of the pull. What has been measured is a single session showing more movement at every joint and more work in the glutes and thigh, which is a reason to expect something, not evidence that it happened.
Are deficit deadlifts bad for your lower back?: Nobody has counted injuries in people who do them against people who do not, so there is no honest number to give you. The one session that measured it found no significant difference in lower back muscle activity between the deficit, the floor and the block versions, which is worth knowing but is not the same as a measurement of what the spine is carrying. If something hurts and keeps hurting, that is a question for a physiotherapist.