Why is the kettlebell on the floor instead of on the plates?

Because the plates are for the lifter, not the bell. Putting the weight up would shorten the pull; putting yourself up lengthens it, and lengthening it is the point of the setup shown here. If you want the shorter version, raise the bell and stand on the ground.

What muscles does the sumo kettlebell deadlift work?

The glutes straighten the hips and are what stands the bell up, with the hamstrings helping. Standing wide with the feet turned out gives the outer hip a job, keeping each knee pointed the same way as its own foot for the whole rep. The inner thigh joins in because of how far apart you are, and the lower back holds your torso rather than lifting with it.

How wide should you stand for a sumo kettlebell deadlift?

Wide enough that your knees have somewhere to travel and your chest can stay high, and no wider than you can push from. Up on two separate stacks that second condition bites sooner than it does on the ground, so the width that works for you on a gym floor may be too much here.

Is a wide stance easier than a hip-width one?

It covers less distance, which is where the reputation comes from, and here that partly cancels out what the plates added. It also asks your hips to open in a direction a hip-width stance never asks about, and for some people that is the harder request by a distance.

My hips pinch at the bottom of a wide stance. What is that?

We cannot tell you, because we cannot see it and pinching in a wide stance has more than one explanation. What is fair to say is that hips differ in how far they open, that pushing a stance past where yours goes tends to produce a jamming feeling rather than a stretching one, and that coming in narrower costs you nothing worth keeping. If something hurts and keeps hurting, that is a question for a physiotherapist.

Do you need to stand on plates at all?

No. This is a wide-stance kettlebell deadlift with the ground moved, and the wide-stance kettlebell deadlift works perfectly well on the ground. Stand on something when the plain version has stopped being enough of a reach, which for most people is later than they think.

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Kettlebell · beginner · upper legs

Kettlebell elevated sumo deadlift

Also called Deficit sumo kettlebell deadlift, Sumo deficit deadlift, Elevated sumo kettlebell deadlift, Wide stance deficit deadlift.

The short answer

A wide stance with the feet turned out, standing on a stack of plates under each foot, the kettlebell on the floor in the gap, both hands together on the one handle inside your legs. Like the hip-width version it starts below foot level, so the pull is longer than one done on flat ground. What the wide stance changes is how you get down there: your chest stays much higher and your knees travel out to the sides, so the depth comes from the hips opening rather than from the torso folding over. Glutes drive it up, the hamstrings help, and the outer hip and inner thigh are busy the whole time holding the stance.

How to do it

Step oneStand on two low platforms or plate stacks in a wide sumo stance, with a kettlebell on the floor in the gap between them.
Step twoTurn your feet outward at approximately 45 degrees and hinge at the hips to grasp the kettlebell.
Step threeKeep your chest up, back flat, and knees tracking over your toes.
Step fourDrive through your heels and squeeze your glutes to stand upright.
Step fiveLower the kettlebell back to the floor between the platforms with control.

What usually goes wrong

Each starts with what you would notice.

Only part of each foot is actually on the plates.

WhyA turned-out foot sits at an angle across a round stack, so the heel or the outside edge ends up over the rim while the middle of the foot takes everything. The wider the stance, the more the foot is angled and the worse the overhang gets.

FixTurn the whole stack to face the way your foot points, or use something with a flat top long enough for the entire foot. If it will not hold a foot at your stance width, it will not hold it at your stance width under load either.

The wide stance feels less steady up on the plates than it does on the ground.

WhyOn the floor your feet press into one continuous surface and the cue about pushing the ground apart has something to push. Up here each foot has its own small island with a drop on either side, and the two are not connected.

FixCome down to a width your feet can hold without the edges being part of the plan, and prefer one wide flat surface with the bell hanging off the front of it over two small stacks. Stance width is decided by what you can push from, and up here that is a shorter list.

You copied the height you use hip width and now you cannot reach the handle.

WhyYour arms did not get longer when the ground did. The distance from your shoulders to the handle has to be found somewhere, and a wide stance has already spent most of the forward fold that a narrow one uses to find it.

FixUse a lower stack than you would for the hip-width version and expect that number to be different, not smaller by mistake. The two setups are not on the same scale even though they use the same plates.

Your chest tips forward over the bell as the set goes on and the last reps look like a narrow-stance pull with your feet in the wrong place.

WhyThe hips have stopped sitting down between the heels, so the torso comes forward to cover the reach instead. Wide feet do nothing on their own; it is the hips staying low that makes a wide stance a wide stance.

FixBetween reps, take a breath at the top and reset the stance rather than diving straight back down. If the shape has changed by rep five, rep five is where the set was over.

Wide stance or hip width, when you are standing on something

Both setups start below your feet, so both cover more distance than the same lift done on flat ground. The difference is what you spend to get down to the handle.

Hip width, you get there by folding forward, and what runs out is how far the hamstrings will let the pelvis tip. Wide, you get there by opening the hips out and letting the knees travel sideways, so the chest stays much higher and what runs out is how far the hips will go in that direction. Those are two different limits, they belong to different people, and neither of them is the mature version of the other.

One honest note about how much this is known. Coaches describe the wide-stance limit as coming from the hips rather than the hamstrings, and it matches what you can see anyone do, but nobody has measured it and nobody has measured a deficit from a wide stance at all. What follows is geometry and observation, not a finding.

The two changes here work against each other

This variation makes two edits to a plain kettlebell deadlift at once, and they pull in opposite directions, which is the thing worth understanding before you set it up.

Standing on the plates makes the pull longer, by however tall the stacks are. Standing wide makes it shorter, because spreading your feet drops your hips closer to the ground and shortens the trip your hands have to make. Do both and you land somewhere in the middle, and where exactly depends on your stance and your stack in a way nobody can predict for you from the outside.

So do not assume the plates are buying you what they buy someone standing hip width. If you stand very wide on a low stack, the whole thing may be shorter than the plain floor version you were trying to make harder. The way to know is to set it up, pull one rep of each, and notice where your hands are when the bell leaves the ground.

None of which makes it a worse exercise. It just means the reason to choose it is the shape rather than the range: a pull where your chest can stay high and your hips do the opening, which is the version some people can hold a position in when the folded-over one gets away from them.

What it is for

The elevated kettlebell sumo deadlift is pulled from a wide stance with the hands inside the legs, standing on platforms with the bell on the floor between them, targeting the glutes. The wide stance keeps the torso more upright while the raised stance lengthens the pull.

Questions people ask

Why is the kettlebell on the floor instead of on the plates?: Because the plates are for the lifter, not the bell. Putting the weight up would shorten the pull; putting yourself up lengthens it, and lengthening it is the point of the setup shown here. If you want the shorter version, raise the bell and stand on the ground.
What muscles does the sumo kettlebell deadlift work?: The glutes straighten the hips and are what stands the bell up, with the hamstrings helping. Standing wide with the feet turned out gives the outer hip a job, keeping each knee pointed the same way as its own foot for the whole rep. The inner thigh joins in because of how far apart you are, and the lower back holds your torso rather than lifting with it.
How wide should you stand for a sumo kettlebell deadlift?: Wide enough that your knees have somewhere to travel and your chest can stay high, and no wider than you can push from. Up on two separate stacks that second condition bites sooner than it does on the ground, so the width that works for you on a gym floor may be too much here.
Is a wide stance easier than a hip-width one?: It covers less distance, which is where the reputation comes from, and here that partly cancels out what the plates added. It also asks your hips to open in a direction a hip-width stance never asks about, and for some people that is the harder request by a distance.
My hips pinch at the bottom of a wide stance. What is that?: We cannot tell you, because we cannot see it and pinching in a wide stance has more than one explanation. What is fair to say is that hips differ in how far they open, that pushing a stance past where yours goes tends to produce a jamming feeling rather than a stretching one, and that coming in narrower costs you nothing worth keeping. If something hurts and keeps hurting, that is a question for a physiotherapist.
Do you need to stand on plates at all?: No. This is a wide-stance kettlebell deadlift with the ground moved, and the wide-stance kettlebell deadlift works perfectly well on the ground. Stand on something when the plain version has stopped being enough of a reach, which for most people is later than they think.