I really hate to be the one to do this, especially for Anisa, but this whole conversation about the trap bar deadlift vs conventional has really tickled my autism especially when reading this thread with a bunch of non lifters.
There's nothing wrong with doing deadlifts on a trap bar. The risk of injury is much lower than on a standard barbell. Nobody can claim that the plates are fake, which would actually be more in line with what ego lifting is, but people are saying it's ego lifting because... you can safely lift more on the hex than on a standard barbell? Granted, you can lift more on the trap bar than you can conventionally since it puts the bar path more on your midline than in front of you. But, this is not ego lifting. Ego lifting is when you swing your body around and lift with absolutely terrible form, aka cheating the weight, in order to make the weights move around to show off how "heavy" you can do a certain lift, like those guys who can curl "300 pounds" and they're swinging their bodies around and doing half reps. It isn't when you do a variation of an exercise. Is it ego lifting that I can do more weight on the leg press machine than I can on a squat? Is it ego lifting that I can do more weight on a standard squat than a front squat? Is it ego lifting that I can do more on incline bench than I can standard bench? (granted, if someone challenged me to squat, I wouldn't show my proof of being able to do it via a smith machine. Or on a challenge for bench using a chest press machine.)
So I'll admit, that her lift with the variation doesn't satisfy the conditions of the petition, because we all know when someone asks how much you can deadlift or they want to see proof of it you don't bust out the variation that makes it easiest for you, but beyond that I don't really care. It's more than 99% of people on the planet can do. For a no steroids female it's actually quite good and I hope she continues her training.
I just think that it's a massive reach to try to say she's an ego lifter, because that's not what ego lifting is. I think she could get her conventional deadlift to the same weight within 6 months of training it.
ego lifting with modifications that allow you to do the lift without full ROM.
Range of Motion and Bar Path are completely separate things. Range of Motion is how far into the concentric and eccentric parts of the movement you go into, IE the ROM for a barbell curl you let the weight go all the way down and extend your arms all the way, and you curl it up to your upper chest/collarbones. Bar Path is the weights trajectory throughout the entire movement. If I did big lenny squat quarter reps, compare to squatting below parallel, the bar path would be completely identical. The only difference would be the range of motion.
