i also strongly disagree. As a medical professional and someone who has done a lot of work with both a barbell and hex bar. I am 100% sure that a “hex deadlift” is safer. Just think about it. You dont have to reach in front of you and so you put very little stress on your lumbar spine. On the other hand, the hex does not strengthen your posterior chain the way a barbell deadlift will. It is much closer to a squat.
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I might be wrong but I think the message is more that bad form is the risk no matter what the lift is, and deadlifts strengthen the lower back. If you learn to lift heavy with a trap bar, you aren’t getting strong in all the other supporting areas so when it comes to using that strength outside of the trap bar, you’ll come a cropper. Except on the bike, I suppose.
Going back to the OP, that particular risk is mitigated by using a powercage with safety bars. I also use the safety bars when bench pressing, which is “more risky” alone than deadlift and squats.
I’m just expressing my thoughts on the matter based on how many people get injured during the motion(s). It’s about the same. If a thousand PhD’s line up to say trap bar should be safer…relative injury rate will still be about the same between the two.
I get the argument…CoG of the bar is not as displaced from CoG of the lifter. We’re dudes…if that’s true we’ll load more weight on the bar until the risk is back to where we started. If you want to eliminate spinal loading…get a hip belt, not a trap bar. A good hip belt is cheaper and much easier to store.
…and, of course, if you’re a cyclist don’t deadlift at all. You don’t need to deadlift to get all the performance benefits of lifting weights. No need to squat, no need to deadlift…unless you just like to do it regardless of relative risk.
I won’t go back-and-forth with you. But I will say there’s no data that I know of that hip belt actually makes a difference, on the other hand there is data on spinal loads with the weight set in front of you rather than at your feet
I read the discussion about this on Some oTher forum, and I wondered why dropping the bar made a difference, so this explains that but…why would lowering the bar do this but not lifting it? The only thing I can think of is different muscles but I don’t see how.
And if lifting it doesn’t grow muscle and mass what does it do that makes them stronger?
I can drop my bar as often as I like as I’m in a detached garage with a concrete floor and have bumper 10s and 5s bigger than my 20s so I could start dropping if I wanted…
See if you can find the podcasts about it, it’s really interesting. Something about the slow de-centric part of lowering the weight is what makes you get bigger and add mass. I suppose lifting it does that as well, but not to the same degree. But he has athletes that will sit on a bench with one leg hovering above the ground, and they will stand up on the one leg and immediately go into a one-legged box jump 40”+ high. I think that was from the Tim Ferris podcast, and Tim laughed and said he has a hard time just standing up from the toilet 
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It might have been my comment on ST about that, too 
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@Brennus if I can’t get to the gym, what would you recommend to replace the leg press? And your opinion on squats (dumbbell front, goblet kettlebell) and dumbbell step-ups?
I am interested to hear @Brennus recommendations as alternatives to deadlifts and squats for cyclists. That being said, I generally don’t weight lift to improve cycling, I weight lift because I cycle. I find it helps straighten out my imbalances a bit and see it as general health requirements. No point doing 10+ hours week cycling if you can’t lift the shopping in.
I am not a new lifter, I have done it for several years, but I am far from experienced as a lot of that has been at home/makeshift gyms rather than with constant supervision. Though I do (or did) check in with a PT every now and again to refresh technique and make sure I am still doing it safely. Still, I never feel comfortable really pushing the weight. My gym sessions are always the equivalent of sweetspot rather than VO2.
He talks about getting stronger without gaining mass at around 11mins
Avoid eccentric because “that’s when the muscle tears, heals with a great cross sectional area”. Do concentric and plyometric for strength without mass gain. 
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Found this today
He talks about the movement in the sagital plane with the hex bar but as I thought the main message is that you aren’t strengthening your back as you would with the straight bar, and that if you’re squatting you’re getting a similar and better workout than a hex deadlift.
I’m sort of undecided myself, in terms of basic strength I think he’s right and I’m doing that; squats, deads, press, bench, row, pull-ups. I get the closed minded focus to drive that.
In terms of specialist lifts for cyclists, runners and triathletes, I can see why we might choose to vary from the fundamentals.
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I like Mark rippetoe a lot. He knows what he’s doing and I watched a ton of his stuff when I was starting to do strength training way before I started anything triathlon. He’s the real deal.
Right at about 9 minutes of the Flaherty video he nails it. “I’m not training lifters. I’m training athletes to be better at their sport through lifting.” I would follow Mark if i wanted to get really good and strong at squats, deadlifts, overhead press, bench, etc. I would follow Ryan if I wanted to get faster and more explosive, which he uses a combination of lifting and plyometrics to do.
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Interesting but without having any formal insight into the in’s and out’s of the actual mechanics of it, his arguments sound pedantic. His big argument is freedom of movement with the hex bar that you don’t get with the barbell. My takeaways counter to his are, proper form and grip alleviate some of his points. There’s nothing magical about a barbell that forces one to have the exact same lift every time. Freedom of movement isn’t a bad thing in a compound lift since it requires additional stabilization to limit his big complaint of sagittal movement. He also seems to be stuck on “it’s not a deadlift” fine, whatever, be pedantic. Hex bar is a valid lift and works things differently than a barbell, you could make the same argument for many lifts - is a landmine squat a squat?
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paused Bulgarian squats and 1-legged box/get-up squats. For cycling, I suspect that pausing at the bottom of your squat is more specific…but I don’t have a shred of actual evidence to support the assertion.
Also, I think the preponderance of data supports the notion that cyclists don’t need a full range squat to reap the bulk of benefit from the motion. So I don’t think you need to worry too much about going ‘three white light’ deep on these movements. (I can’t believe I’m saying that)
Consider farmer’s walking up stairs. Remember, FTP is your ~5400 rep max. Maybe it makes sense to do some loaded exercises in the higher rep range. Take the steps 2x if it feels too easy.
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IIRC Chad was saying it’s a good lift and a good alternative, but the hex bar wasn’t a direct replacement for the deadlift as it’s closer to a squat.
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Well, look, I’m no big fan of sky high squats…for many years I drank my tea every morning out of a big-assed white mug with DEEPSQUATTER emblazoned on it in big black letters…and I would never rec leg extensions to a stength athlete…but the fact of the matter is quarter squats, leg extensions, leg press, heel raises seem to confer significant performance benefits to trained cyclists.
So very basic lower body exercises seem to confer outsized performance benefits to cyclists. Would a deadlift be better? Would snatch pulls be better? Maybe! But if more complex compound movements are better I doubt they are a LOT better and (in my experience) the risk of something going wrong during a deadlift or a clean or a snatch is much higher than the risk of something going wrong during a leg press or a quarter squat.
Let’s not go crazy, then. Just do the protocol mentioned in the Ronnestadt papers. Let’s not risk 4 weeks off the bike chasing 2% better performance in the gym…unless & until 2% is really gonna make the difference and is really the biggest gain we have left to chase.
Oh lordy. I never thought we’d live to see the day when I suggested we squat high and do some knee extensions. What, oh what, has happened to the world?
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Thanks. I’ll check this out.
BTW - I have to say, I like the Hex Bar lift. Back when I could go to the gym without fear of covid, I’d throw it into rotation if I was pressed for time, plus I like the more neutral hand position.
But at this point, for me, the most important thing is I’m doing some sort of strength training at lest 2x a week.
I know we can argue all day about what the pros do but: Does Weight Lifting Make You Faster? What Cyclists Should Do in the Gym - YouTube
At least his trainer sees some sort of benefit to include it on the programming, it it better, maybe not, but I’d look at it like another tool to consider.
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