Interesting finding regarding squats and straight leg deadlifts.

[Axion]

As I've mentioned before i cycle which takes a lot out of my legs. This means that i can't afford to have squats and dead lifts on seperate days because if i did that my legs would never recouperate. So what I've chosent to do is trade off every couple of weeks what my main leg/ lower body exersizes are. One routine I'll do Squats and straight leg deadlifts, the other i'll do Full dead lifts and leg presses(or squats in the smith machine. After this i'll do leg extensions and calf raises in either case. I know this isn't strictly ideal, but given my situation it's been working out for me.

Now what I wanted to talk about specifically is that for the last month or a little longer i havent done full dead lifts at all because I've been making good progress on squats and didn't want to interup the run. Well yesterday I went back to doing full dead lifts and to my surprise and delight I was able to work with 30 lbs more then what i could last time. I'd be impressed wuith those gains even if i'd been doing full dead lifts that whole time. This suggests to me that the combination of squats and straight leg dead lifts is almost as doing full dead lifts.

Discuss....


p.s. I still plan on working full dead lifts in my routine because I think they probably still do some things that squats + straight leg deads don't.

p.p.s. When I say full deads I'm refering to normall dead when you squat down and stand up with the weight. I just call them "full" deads to differentiate between them and the straight leg variety.

[Cort]

Thing is the squats don't improve your grip, back and shoulders in the same way deadlifts do.

[Axion]

No squats don't. But I think doing squats AND straight leg dead lifts might get CLOSE.

[Tuna Fish]

Hi Ax-

Nice job on the increase. Do whatever works for YOU, as opposed to whatever the peanut gallery says is "optimal" or "best" or whatever....

Again, nice job- keep it going bro!! :

[Karl]

I was actually alternating squats and deadlifts for a while, made huge gains on both

[gcs118]

I've noticed if I squat every 2 weeks instead of every week, I always seem to come back much stronger. I suppose it's only because I'm letting myself fully recover from heavy squats (and heavy deads earlier in the week), but alternating/taking time off from them seems to work pretty well.

[DBZ Status]

axion i also am a fellow squater and stiff leg deadlifter. The rule i have pretty much discovered is if u can stiff leg deadlift a weight u can also deadlift it usually very easily. Also i have noticed i have always been able to squat more then deadlift. When my squat goes up my deadlift also naturally goes up you seem to be the same way.

[Firehawk]

Originally Posted by DBZ Status

axion i also am a fellow squater and stiff leg deadlifter. The rule i have pretty much discovered is if u can stiff leg deadlift await u can also deadlift it usually very easily. Also i have noticed i have always been able to squat more then deadlift. When my squat goes up my deadlift also naturally goes up you seem to be the same way.

You do this raw? that's weird for a raw lifter.

[F_Mac]

Squats have excellent carryover to deads. Many top powerlifters train deadlifts very infrequently.

Lots of the same muscles are involved in both lifts, mainly legs, core, and back. Glad to hear it's working well for you. :

[Firehawk]

Originally Posted by F-Mac

Squats have excellent carryover to deads. Many top powerlifters train deadlifts very infrequently.

Lots of the same muscles are involved in both lifts, mainly legs, core, and back. Glad to hear it's working well for you. :

Yea, especially when you good morning weight up...like i do with max squats LMAO.

[luke.w]

Originally Posted by Firehawk

that's weird for a raw lifter.

really it isn't if they are half squats, (questionable depth), or low-bar ect.

[Firehawk]

i guess i always assume at least parallel...

[DBZ Status]

oh whoops I meant to say i can deadlift more then i can squat. Kinda got mixed up there i wrote that pretty late at night. SOrry about that ...it would be really weird if i could squat more then deadlift. I do squat to parallel though and when i do half reps i can do more then i deadlift like luke said.

Also i usually lift with a belt on the last three worksets i guess thats considered somewhat raw. Can you use belts in powerlifting competitions?

[Firehawk]

I think luke considers a half squat to be down to parallel. A quarter squat is half way to parallel. Not speaking for him, but I think that's what he calls it.