- most of a relatively poor body structure for squatting, and neglected to apply
myself to an exercise I am mechanically much better suited to—the dead-
lift.. As it was I spent many years focusing on the squat while omitting the dead-
lift. e experience proved that while my back and knees would cave in
from the squat, the deadlift could be kept moving.. I am not in a minority of one on this point; and I believe that the minority
is a substantial one among hard gainers. If you cannot get great results from
the barbell squat, and assuming you have put in some effort and investigated
suitable modifications such as those described in ’ -
- , then promote
the bent-legged deadlift, especially using the Trap Bar, to at least equal status
with the squat. (But not the stiff-legged deadlift, because it does not involve
the quadriceps.). If you cannot barbell squat but have access to a safe alternative that mimics
the squat, e.g., the Tru-Squat, exploit it to the full.. Beginners and early intermediates should give equal priority to the squat
and deadlift in their training. But once they have got to the intermediate
stage—when they look like they lift weights—they should be able to see
how they compare in the two exercises. Assuming the same degree of appli-
cation to each exercise, if your squat is about the same or ahead of your
deadlift, then you have a squatter’s body structure. If your deadlift is well
ahead of your squat, then it is the deadlift that is favored by your body struc-
ture. At this stage, at least some of the time, you should have specialization
cycles in which you focus on the exercise you naturally favor. Make the most
of whatever natural bias you have. While the very gifted can do very well in
almost every exercise, the rest of us may have to settle for finding just one or
two exercises in which we excel, but without neglecting other areas.. I started weight training in . I got little or nothing out of most of those
years other than lots of experience of what does not work despite single-
minded determination and application. I never got into any variation of the
deadlift in a serious way until about . Until then it had been the squat
for my thigh, hip and lower back structure. I then got into low-rep deadlift-
ing. After about three years of hard work in both the stiff-legged and bent-
legged versions, but not both of them in the same cycle, I was capable of