Forgotten Exercises: The Hopper Deadlift

Today we discuss a bouncing deadlift done with heavy weights.

Yes, really.

Now before anyone loses their mind remember two things about this website

1. It is interested in the history of fitness
2. I am not a doctor (well technically I am a doctor of history but ‘Big Medicine’ won’t let me give medical opinions)

So please do not take this as an endorsement of bouncing deadlifts with heavy weights. Specifically, please don’t take this as an endorsement of the Hopper Deadlift. Anecdotally I’ve tried it and loved it. From a covering my own ass point of view, I encourage some critical thinking on your part. I study the history of fitness, not the science of it. So do not mistake me as intelligent when it comes to exercise suggestions.

Now back to our hopping, bouncing, hopper, deadlift which its inventor claimed would alleviate back pain and increase one’s strength in equal measure. The hopper deadlift is a straightforward thing to explain – get four thick wooden planks. Set them up, one on the other, so that there are two on either side of you. Bolt them together if possible. Put your max deadlift weight, or close to it on a barbell with the plates on either side of the barbell sitting on the planks. Lift the barbell and when you’re bringing it down, allow the full weight of the barbell to be absorbed by the planks i.e. drop it. As the bar rebounds lift it back up again. What could go wrong?

Who Invented the Hopper?

J.C. Hise, the man most people credit with popularising the 20 rep squat bulking program, also created the hopper deadlift. According to Peary Rader, who was one of Hise’s biggest fans and promoters

After having used the squat for months Joe decided to give deadlifting a try. He used the regular bent leg style and then tried the stiff legged version. This caused him to have a stiff back following each session. Using his inventive mind, Joe came up with a hopper so he could bounce the weight past the danger point. He discovered that if he bounced the weight from wooden planks that were raised about two inches at each end he relieved the over-stretch and this allowed him to handle 550 for 5 reps in the exercise. Then Joe got annoyed with kettlebells pressing down on his wrists, cut holes in some buckets, and made what he called bucket-bells.

Now interestingly, fellow fitness writer Harry Atkins cited Roger Eels, another 20 rep squat aficionado as the inventor of this movement. Still, the consensus seems to be that Hise, more so than anyone else, was responsible for the movement’s popularisation, if not outright invention. Atkins is, however, really useful in giving clear instructions on how to do this movement

The method of performance is as follows: The weight is first lifted in the standard Dead Lift fashion with bent knees, flat back and head up, On reaching the erect position, the knees are locked and kept locked throughout the complete number of repetitions. Between 15 and 20 are excellent.

As soon as the body reaches the erect position you dive with the weight, letting it strike the hopper the hopper with the full impact of its own weight. Immediately the weight touches the hopper you pull hard and return to the erect position.

It has been said that a hopper bounces the weight and that it is really the hopper doing the work, not the lifter. That statement is not correct. If you held a really heavy poundage at the chest and dropped it onto the hopper you would find that it bounced approximately 1/2 inch.

The great advantage of this apparatus is that it accustoms the body to handling really heavy poundages. It overcomes the nasty sticking point at the bottom of the lift, thereby reducing the possibility of sacroiliac strain to the point where they are almost nonexistent.

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Why Do This Movement?

Look. I get it. It is a bouncing deadlift for Christ’s sake. Your skepticism and spinal concerns are well warranted and I am not trying to get you to do anything unsafe. As a reminder, this is a history of fitness website, and I am an idiot. So no medical or training advice here is needed or worthwhile. However…

I am also an idiot who likes to try things out. This was no exception.

The deadlift has always been my favorite lift and I continue to do it in a variety of ways be it sumo, trap, single legged etc. I count myself blessed to have only minorly injured myself once deadlifting but that injury gave me enough respect to not play around with this movement. I thus trialled the Hopper deadlift for two months in a really cautious and risk averse way.

Turns out I didn’t need to. Using the kind of form shown in the above video and keeping my rep range between 12 and 20 reps, I found the Hopper deadlift to be an awesome way of handling heavy (ish) weights for reps. This helped me bring up my work capacity on the deadlift and, as anyone knows, conditioning can be a real limiting factor for deadlifts. This is especially the case for me as I’ve moved away from testing one rep maxes and instead prefer to test my strength in the 3 to 5 rep range.

My advice for anyone seeking to train the hopper is to take time constructing your hopper platform. As suggested by those in the mid-twentieth-century I used a series of planks one on top of the other. A friend of mine with access to Olympic weightlifting platforms used them instead. Really the biggest thing is having a 2-4inch base that be handle heavy weights. Be warned, however, the hopper creates an insane amount of clanging noise. This is especially the case if you’re using steel weights.

I suppose an important question is whether I would use the hopper again after my trial. On this one I’m a little bit more ambivalent. There are certain movements that I know are good for me that I often don’t do because I find the set up to be such a pain. The hip thrust is a great example. Takes 2-3 minutes for me to set it up properly. I’d rather trade off some of the benefits and do dumbbell lunges instead.

Could I take the 5 minutes to set up my planks? Of course. Will I do stiff legged deadlifts instead? Probably. That being said I will return to this at some point. Allowing the weight to drop onto the planks stops the lower back getting fatigued and I loved the tempo I could deadlift at using a weight between 70 to 85% of my top set.

Your miles may vary but if it is good enough for Hise. I’m sold!

As always… Happy Lifting.