When people ask me to define the difference between a squat and a deadlift I used to be able to give a simple answer. In the deadlift the weight is in the hands (see figure 6.1a). To me, that was the easiest way to distinguish between squats and deadlifts. For squats the bar is on the shoulders (see figure 6.1b), either front or back. Both lifts look a lot alike. But if a deadlift is defined by a weight in the hands, what is depicted in figure 6.2?
Figure 6.2 Rear-foot-elevated split squat.
Readers familiar with the exercise would say that’s a rear-foot-elevated split squat, or if you like silly names, a Bulgarian lunge (silly because it is neither Bulgarian nor a lunge). But isn’t the weight in the hands? The argument will be that it’s a squat because the torso is more erect.
Lower body strength training can be broken down into knee-dominant patterns and hip-dominant patterns. In the old days, this broke down into bilateral squats and bilateral deadlifts and their variations.
My point is that the picture we have now is much more complicated. Our exercise menu has evolved so much that the old definitions of squat and deadlift no longer apply, and we need new ones. In the goblet squat, the weight is in the hands but above the waist. It’s a squat. Maybe a type of front squat but a squat nonetheless. In the kettlebell sumo deadlift, the weight is in the hands but the lower body pattern can be turned into a knee-dominant one that looks more like a squat than a deadlift.
Is figure 6.3 a trap-bar deadlift or trap-bar squat, or does that depend on how the exercise is done? If an exercise that is called a trap-bar deadlift has a squatting-type lower body pattern, does it then become a trap-bar squat? In a suitcase-style rear-foot-elevated split squat the weight is in the hands and below the waist, but these clearly don’t seem like deadlifts.
Figure 6.3 A trap-bar deadlift or trap-bar squat?
So then we come back to the definition of a deadlift. Is it a deadlift if the weight is picked up from the ground and then brought back to the ground? That might have been my definition until I read Dan John and Pavel Tsatsouline’s Easy Strength. The authors may have redefined squats and deadlifts. They make the distinction of a deadlift having “deep hip movement with minimal knee bend” and a squat having “deep movement of the knees and hips” (179).
In other words a hip-dominant movement is a deadlift and a knee-dominant movement is a squat. A hip-dominant movement has, as John and Tsatsouline say, “deep hip movement with minimal knee bend.” Think kettlebell swings (see figure 6.4) and the misnamed straight-leg deadlift (see figure 6.5). I like the term modified straight-leg deadlift. With the popularity of swings and the emergence of the trap bar, the landscape has changed quite a bit.
Figure 6.5 Straight-leg deadlift or modified straight-leg deadlift.
Perhaps we should reexamine some exercises and classify them using John and Tsatsouline’s definitions.
Let’s analyze the sumo deadlift (see figure 6.6). Anterior chain? Maybe. Posterior chain? Maybe. Adductor target? Definitely. Is this a deadlift? When I was a powerlifter this was the deadlift for squatters. In my powerlifting days I was a sumo-style deadlifter because my legs were much stronger than my back.
Figure 6.6 Sumo deadlift.
A wide-stance squatter who is more anterior-chain dominant will probably pull more in the sumo deadlift than the conventional deadlift. Such a lifter basically squats the deadlift while holding the bar in the hands. In terms of knee dominant or hip dominant, I think we have to vote for knee. In the first edition of Functional Training for Sports I called these hybrids, exercises that didn’t seem to fit neatly into the knee- or the hip-dominant categories.
In figure 6.7a, the unloaded version would be a sumo squat. Add a kettlebell as indicated and it becomes a sumo deadlift (figure 6.7b). Move the load up to goblet position and it becomes a goblet squat (see figure 6.7c). Confused? I hope not. The point is that things are never as clear or as simple as we would like them to be.
Figure 6.7 Sumo squat.
Bottom line: Who cares? It really is just semantics. In a powerlifting meet, the deadlift will always be the lift picked up from the floor. However in gyms and sport performance programs the menu has changed. Hip hinge with minimal knee movement? Deadlift. Shared knee and hip movement? Squat.
To make matters worse (or better), I want you to teach your athletes to squat, but when they start to get strong, to switch to unilateral variations of the squat or to the trap-bar deadlift if you really want a bilateral exercise. The concept of relying primarily on unilateral training for the lower body is based on one simple thought (we run and jump on one leg most of the time) and one not-so-simple thought, something known as the bilateral deficit.
“The bilateral limb deficit (BLD) phenomenon is the difference in maximal or near maximal force generating capacity of muscles when they are contracted alone or in combination with the contralateral muscles. A deficit occurs when the summed unilateral force is greater than the bilateral force. The BLD has been observed by a number of researchers in both upper and lower limbs, in
isometric and in dynamic contractions” (Kuruganti, Murphy, and Pardy 2010)
What does this mean? It means an athlete on one leg is able to squat more than half of what he can squat on two legs. We are actually stronger with one foot on the ground than we are with two feet on the ground, if you divide by two. Every athlete we train can do a rear-foot-elevated split squat with significantly more than half of what they can do in a back squat. In fact when we tested both front squats and rear-foot-elevated split squats, many of our athletes could split-squat and front-squat with the same loads. I know it seems impossible, but it’s not.
So step one is still teaching the squat pattern. Notice I said squat pattern and not squat. The goal is mobility in the squat position, not getting a bar in the back or front squat position. Simply attempting to teach an athlete the body-weight squat, goblet squat, or kettlebell deadlift can reveal important information about strength, flexibility, and injury potential. Body-weight squats and goblet squats can be used to assess mobility in the hips and ankles, flexibility in the hamstrings, and the general status of the lower body.
Athletes who cannot body-weight squat to a position with the thighs parallel to the floor (see figure 6.8) tend to be deficient in ankle or hip mobility, hamstring flexibility, or a combination of the three. The first step in correcting a problem with the squat pattern is to attempt a squat with the heels elevated. Raising the heels on a one- by four-inch (2.5 by 10 cm) board or a specially made wedge should enable most athletes to squat to the proper depth. The board simply provides artificial ankle mobility.
Figure 6.8 Athletes who cannot body-weight squat to a position with the thighs parallel to the floor
tend to be deficient in ankle or hip mobility, hamstring flexibility, or a combination of the three.
Note: Raising the heels does not harm the knees in any way. The idea that elevating the heels increases the stress on the knees is not supported by any scientific research we have ever seen. In fact, Olympic weightlifters and competitive powerlifters have used heeled shoes in both competition and training for decades.
Proper squat patterning involves teaching the athlete to keep the weight on the heels and to sit back into the squat. When most athletes hear the directive “squat,” their minds tell their bodies to lower their hips the easiest way possible.
For weaker athletes the easiest way is often one that does not overstress the weak muscles (usually the quadriceps). Weaker athletes or athletes returning from injury often attempt to lower the center of gravity by initially driving the knees forward out over the toes until the limit of the ankle range of motion is reached (see figure 6.9). Then and only then does the movement begin to center on the knee joint. This type of ankle-dominant squatting leads to excessive knee flexion in order to reach a position with the thighs parallel to the ground.
Figure 6.9 Weaker athletes or athletes returning from injury often attempt to lower the center of
gravity by initially driving the knees forward out over the toes until the limit of the ankle range of motion is reached.