Two of the most common movements in any program are the deadlift and squat. Many believe they are the same type of movement. However, they are very different exercises.
So, let’s compare deadlift vs squat: what’s the difference? The deadlift is a pulling exercise that requires the athlete to lift resistance in front of their body, while the squat requires the athlete to squat resistance behind their body. The placement of resistance alters the muscles recruited.
Both exercises require leg drive. The placement of resistance, range of motion, and muscles worked make them very different. Not knowing these differences could hurt your training, as you could choose the wrong exercise!
In this article, we will discuss the following:
- The differences between the deadlift and squat
- The benefits, drawbacks, and muscles used for the deadlift
- The benefits, drawbacks, and muscles used for the squat
- How to program the deadlift and squat
- Discuss if the deadlift or squat is better
Table of Contents
Deadlift vs Squats: 4 Major Differences
Both the deadlift and squat are seen as leg-driven exercises. However, there are some major differences between the two. The differences between the deadlift and squat are:
- Placement of resistance
- Muscles used
- Range of motion
- Phases of Movement
Placement of Resistance
The placement of resistance is a huge difference between squats and deadlifts.
- For the deadlift, the bar is placed in front of the athlete on the floor.
- For the squat, the bar is placed on the athlete's upper back.
These differences cause changes in the muscles being used and the range of motion as well.
Muscles Used
| Exercise | Targeted Muscle Groups | Details of Performance |
| Deadlift |
|
|
| Squats |
|
|
Because the deadlift and the squat have different bar placements, this significantly impacts the muscles used.
The deadlift is a pulling exercise that will engage the hamstrings, hips, lower back, core, and various back muscles. Using a sumo stance can also create the use of other muscle groups such as the abductors and adductors for stability.
The squat is an exercise that provides more leg drive, meaning it will recruit the quadriceps and hips. The core will be used to stabilize the weight, especially through the use of “bracing”.
Both movements are full-body exercises, making them a priority for improving both size and strength.
Of course, if we considered dumbbell squats vs deadlift, the muscles would be different since dumbbells work your arms more.
Range of Motion
The deadlift is a movement that starts off the floor. When getting into position, it is noticed that the hips are in a higher position than during a squat. This means there is a lesser range of motion to complete the lift than compared to the traditional barbell squat.
The squat is meant to be executed to a parallel depth. This depth is standard and helps distinguish between “successful” and “unsuccessful” reps. With the hips dropping further than a traditional deadlift, this creates more leg drive, which can favor the leg muscles primarily.
Phases of Movement
Most movements in strength training use two phases: the stretching phase and the shortening phase. The stretching phase allows the muscle to increase the elastic strength of the muscle for the shortening phase.
The difference between the deadlift and squat is that the deadlift prioritizes the shortening phase, while the squat incorporates the stretching phase before the shortening phase.
The squat starts with the lifter dropping to parallel, which allows the muscle to stretch and improve elastic strength. Once they have reached the standard depth of the squat, they will redirect the movement upward, which is then the shortening phase.
The deadlift doesn’t prioritize both phases. The bar is motionless, and instead of stretching the muscle to shorten it, the deadlift starts with the shortening phase.
The differences in execution could affect the amount of muscular effort needed to complete each lift.
The Deadlift: How To, Muscles Worked, Tips, Common Mistakes, Benefits, and Drawbacks
Deadlift: How To Do It
Step One: Get into your stance
If you are a conventional deadlifter, you will place your feet underneath your hips. If you are a sumo deadlifter, you will place your feet outside your hips with your toes slightly outward, perhaps 45 degrees.
Step Two: Grip the bar
Most deadlifts will use a mixed grip, meaning one hand is overhand, and the other is underhand. Other grips could be double overhand or hook grip (more common with sumo deadlifters).
Step Three: Head placement, and brace yourself
Head placement influences your spine’s position. If you look completely forward or completely down, your spine could flex or extend too much. Make sure to look slightly downward, 45 degrees, to make your back flat.
To brace, take a deep breath through your stomach to push tension into your belt. This will help your lumbar spine stay rigid and flat.
Step Four: Wedge your hips into the bar and lift
Once you have positioned yourself, hold your breath and pull the weight off the floor. As you continue to lift the weight, tilt your head forward to help push your hips into the bar for lockout (wedge the hips).
Step Five: Stay tall to lockout
As you lift, stay tall and have good posture to improve your chances for leg drive. Leaning forward will cause your hip joint to fold and not properly engage with leg drive.
Step Six: Return to the starting position, and repeat reps
Once you have completed the lift, bring yourself downward to the starting position. Repeat reps as needed.
Deadlift: Muscles Worked
The deadlift recruits the following muscle groups:
- Hamstrings
- Hips
- Adductors and Abductors
(Sumo Stanced)
- Lower Back
- Upper Back
- Core
Hamstrings
The hamstrings are located behind the legs that help with the hinging action of the deadlift. The deadlift requires some leg drive, but the hips move mainly forwards and backward due to a higher starting position.
Hips
The glute maximus is the dominant hip muscle that helps with hip extension. The deadlift starts in a crouched position, and the glute maximus helps with the action of hip extension for lockout.
Adductors and Abductors (Sumo Stanced)
If you lift in a sumo position, your feet are wider, and your upper legs are positioned outward. To keep the upper leg stable during the sumo deadlift, the adductor and abductor muscles work together to keep your position strong.
Lower Back
The lower back muscle we discuss is the “erector spinae.” Most people believe you will not use your back if you lift with your legs. The deadlift is a movement that requires the lifter to pull weight in front of their body. Because of this, the lifter leans forward slightly, which will put some stress on the lower back.
Upper Back
The pulling action of the deadlift requires the lifter to use their lower back and upper back muscles to stabilize the weight. The lattisimus dorsi, trapezius fibers, and rhomboids are the various back muscles used during a deadlift to support the bar’s placement during the deadlift.
Core
Between the lower back and abdominals, these muscles work together to keep your posture optimal for increasing your positioning with the deadlift.
Deadlift: Benefits
The benefits of performing a deadlift are:
- Improve Posture
- Strengthen Grip
- Increase Back Size
Improve Posture
When performing a deadlift, it is important to have optimal posture. You need to have strong hip, core, back, and leg muscles to do this. Besides the deadlift helping to improve your size and strength, it will also indirectly improve your posture.
Having an ideal posture can help with your everyday life, such as sitting, walking, and performing daily tasks. We are very “front-dominant” individuals who need to promote our posture more than we already do. The deadlift can provide this stimulus for us.
Strengthen Grip
If you are an athlete of any kind, you know the importance of grip. And if you have a successful deadlift, you will have a very strong grip.
Grip doesn’t have to merely be an indicator of successful strength. A study found that a stronger grip makes you less likely to have health-related issues such as diabetes and high blood pressure. With all the benefits listed, I suggest deadlifting as soon as possible!
Increase Back Size
We are very front-dominant individuals. This means the muscles in front of our body thrive more than behind our body. The deadlift is a testament to building stronger hips, legs, and back.
When looking at the structure of this movement, weighting front of the body means the back muscles must help stabilize the weight. The more you perform the deadlift, the stronger your back will become.
Did you know that the deadlift could benefit your squat? Check out this article about the many ways the deadlift can aid your squat performance!
Deadlift: Drawbacks
Some of the drawbacks to performing a deadlift are:
- Back Pain
- Risk of Injury
- High Muscular Recruitment
Back Pain
Without proper strength and positioning, the deadlift could cause pain, especially in the back. The deadlift needs to be performed to mastery, and the heavier you deadlift, the worst the pain could become.
I think the deadlift has many benefits, but one of the massive drawbacks is back pain. The deadlift must properly happen in programming with the right guidance or perhaps with the right variation.
Risk of Injury
The deadlift is a full-body movement, making it a stronger movement that could attract injury. Encouraging good form, posture, and mechanics is huge with this lift. If the lifter doesn’t have the prerequisites of good deadlifting form, they shouldn’t be doing the deadlift.
High Muscular Recruitment
The deadlift is a single-phase exercise that prioritizes the shortening phase of movement. When performing the deadlift, the weight will not come off the floor if you do not have an initial high level of muscular recruitment. Because of this immediate demand for muscular recruitment, this can make the deadlift a taxing exercise to perform.
Deadlift: Common Mistakes
The deadlift can be very rewarding yet risky. Some common mistakes are:
- Looking Upward
- Rounded Back
- Leaning Forward
Looking Upward
As noted in this article, head placement can influence your spine’s position for posture. Looking excessively upward could cause you to ruin your posture and reduce your ability to deadlift properly. To fix this, it is ideal to look slightly downward to allow your back to flatten for better posture and improve hip positioning for leg drive.
Rounded Back
When performing the deadlift, some individuals struggle with a rounded back. The back can round due to weaknesses with different muscle groups or perhaps bad bar placement. The further away the bar is from your body, the more likely your upper body will round and you will struggle to deadlift properly.
Leaning Forward
Bad bar placement and bad head placement can cause the weight to move forward on the deadlift. The further forward you are during the deadlift, the more likely you will create issues with your back and possibly create an injury.
Deadlift: Programming Recommendations
Here are the recommendations for building size and building strength
Size
The deadlift is a single-phase movement focusing on the shortening phase of exercise. This makes this movement potentially hard to build size. However, the stronger your deadlift can influence your body size. A bigger deadlift requires a bigger back as these muscles stabilize the barbell.
To program this lift for size, it’s important to consider the tempo of the movement.
An example would be slowly lowering each rep's weight to focus on stretching the muscle. I wouldn’t recommend doing more than 5 consecutive deadlift reps within any working set.
Strength
Deadlift is a huge movement for building strength. If you want to build strength with this exercise, redirect volume to perform more sets and fewer reps.
An ordinary rep scheme for strength exercise would be 4 sets of 6 reps. However, for deadlift, it would be wise to flip those values to do 6 sets of 4 reps. The deadlift always starts motionless off the floor, and doing more sets of fewer reps helps you train that “first rep strength” more often and with more rest.
The Squat: How To, Muscles Worked, Tips, Common Mistakes, Benefits, and Drawbacks
Squat: How To Do It
Step One: Get into your stance
Most people want to squat with their feet underneath their hips. Strength athletes like powerlifters might squat a bit wider with toes outward to help them get more hip engagement.
Step Two: Grip the bar
Make sure to grab the bar about shoulder width apart or a few inches outward. This helps to stabilize the weight on your upper back.
Step Three: Bar placement, and brace yourself
Place the bar on your upper back for the squat. If the bar is higher on your back, you will be more knee-dominant to engage the quadriceps. If you place the bar lower on the back, you will be more hip-dominant and engage the glutes.
After bar placement, you will unrack the weight and brace your core. To brace, take a deep breath through your stomach to push tension into your belt. This will help your lumbar spine stay rigid and flat.
Step Four: Squat the weight
Once you have unracked the weight and braced yourself, you need to squat to a depth that is either parallel or just below it. Most strength competitions require the squat to be below the depth of parallel.
Step Five: Stay tall to lockout
As you lift, make sure to stay tall and have good posture to improve your chances for leg drive. Leaning forward will cause your hip joint to fold and ruin leg drive.
Step Six: Return to the starting position, and repeat reps
Once you have completed the lift, bring yourself down and repeat reps as needed.
Squat: Muscles Worked
The squat recruits the following muscle groups:
- Quadriceps
- Hamstrings
- Hips
- Core
Quadriceps
The quadriceps are the powerful knee extensors of the leg. They are located in front of the upper leg and help with any exercise requiring knee extension. Due to the mechanics, the quadriceps are the primary muscle group used during the squat.
Hamstrings
The hamstrings are located behind the upper leg and help with the opposing actions of the quadriceps. Although the hamstrings are not directly trained during the squat, they help decelerate the weight as the athlete reaches depth for performance.
Hips
The glute maximus is the primary hip muscle that helps with hip extension. In addition to knee extension, hip extension is pivotal with the squatting motion. The glute maximus is one of the primary muscles used to perform the squat exercise.
Core
Between the lower back and abdominals, these muscles work together to keep your posture optimal for increasing your positioning with the squat.
Do you struggle with the squat? Check out this article about if you should squat with a sumo stance or a normal stance!
Squat: Benefits
The benefits of performing a squat are:
- Increase Leg Size
- Improve Posture
- Elevate Athleticism
Increase Leg Size
Between the deadlift and squat, the squat has a bigger range of motion. This range of motion corresponds to better leg drive, which allows this movement to support massive growth in leg size.
The deadlift is a very taxing movement due to an immediate demand for muscular recruitment. Although doing multiple reps for the deadlift exercise is not ideal, the squat can be performed for many reps, increasing muscular growth response.
Improve Posture
The squat improves posture by stabilizing weight from the upper back. Posture is a huge concern within our population. It is noted in research that in 2019, between 35-45% of the United States population had some level of back pain (depending on the demographics).
The squat can be a preventative measure for helping reduce back pain issues by utilizing better posture. The squat is known to improve the leg and hip muscles, but the squat also requires strong postural muscles to increase leg drive mechanics.
Elevate Athleticism
The squat is a dominant action in most sports. Whether rebounding in basketball or sprinting in track, the hips move downward and upward just like a squat. Using the squat to replicate various skills improves the elasticity of the muscle.
Performing squats can elevate athletic performance for most athletes for this reason alone.
Not sure if the squat or deadlift grows your legs more? Here are the differences between the squat and deadlift with building leg size!
Squat: Drawbacks
Some of the drawbacks to performing a squat are:
- Balance and Coordination
- Shoulder Mobility
- High Muscular Recruitment
Balance and Coordination
The squat is a skill that requires both balance and coordination due to using resistance placed on the upper back. Having good balance and coordination could make it harder to perform the squat. There are many benefits to doing the squat, but there are some considerations to take as well.
Shoulder Mobility
Placing the bar on the upper back requires your arms to reach behind the body to stabilize the weight. Most people can perform this action, however, it can be a limiter when performing the squat. The squat can put a ton of pressure on the shoulder joint to perform correctly..
High Muscular Recruitment
The deadlift was noted to require immediate muscular recruitment. Although the squat doesn't need this immediate muscular recruitment, the squat is a massive compound movement that requires a high level of CNS engagement.
Squat: Common Mistakes
Some common mistakes of the squat are:
- Pelvic Tilt
- Valgus Knees
- Knee vs Hip Dominant
Pelvic Tilt
When performing the squat, some people have issues with their lower back based on hip placement. Many call it “pelvic tilt,” which pertains to the hips being tilted forwards or backward depending on mobility and strength imbalances. If your hip (the pelvic bone) has this issue, this causes your lower back to round and hurt performance.
Valgus Knees
It’s one of the most common mistakes of anyone who does the squat exercise. During the squat, if your knees move inward, this is called “valgus knee” and can weaken your positioning for a strong squat. This can be due to imbalances of the hip abductor and adductor muscles and can be a huge issue for anyone who wants to be successful with squatting.
Knee vs Hip Dominant
When you watch someone squat on their toes, they are a knee-dominant squatter. If someone looks like they are about to fall backward, they are said to be a hip-dominant squatter. You want to balance your effort on squats by ensuring the barbell is just above the midfoot. This means the weight is placed properly for you to squat evenly between the knee and hip joints.
Squat: Programming Recommendations
Here are the recommendations for building size and building strength
Size
When building size from the squat, you want to aim for 6-10 consecutive reps within 3-4 working sets. This volume range concerns the squat requiring high muscular recruitment and can exhaust you quicker than most exercises.
Because of high muscular recruitment, I do not recommend going more than 10 reps in a row. Also, do not train for size for too long, as this could exhaust your body and not allow you to recover as much.
High-volume training shouldn’t last longer than 8 weeks. If you want to continue to build size, move into “building strength” to help add to your size.
Strength
When training for strength, training between 1-5 consecutive reps within 3-5 working sets is important. As you train for strength, you want to progressively overload your body with more and more weight each week. To build in strength, it should happen over 8-12 weeks, building down from 5 reps to a new rep max.
Is the Deadlift or Squat Better?
Neither the deadlift nor the squat is better. As we have mentioned throughout this article, both movements require different actions. Although both require leg drive, the resistance placement, range of motion, and muscles used make them very different.
So unless you want a massive squat or a deadly deadlift, both movements have their differences that need to be considered.
Not sure if you should squat or deadlift? Check out this article to see which lift is the best for you!
What Is a Good Squat to Deadlift Ratio?
It is noted through research that a standard for having a good deadlift or squat is between 1-2 times body weight. Top-tier lifters can lift within a ratio of 2.5 to 3 times their own body weight.
But what is a good squat-to-deadlift ratio? Your deadlift vs squat weight ratio is almost equal. Most people squat 90% of their deadlift. So if you can deadlift 300 pounds, you should be able to squat 270 pounds. Both are close in value, and it is recommended that you train both movements in your programming if you want an equally balanced squat-to-deadlift ratio.
If you want to consider all big three movements of the squat, bench, and deadlift, Michael Matthews (author of “Beyond Leaner, Bigger and Stronger”) says that a good squat bench deadlift ratio is lifting:
- Squat: 1.5 times your body weight.
- Bench: 1.2 times your body weight.
- Deadlift: 2 times your body weight.
Should You Prioritize Deadlifts or Squats?
You should prioritize the deadlift or squat based on your needs and goals. If you need to have stronger legs, bigger legs, or better athletic performance, you should prioritize the squat. If you are looking to have a stronger back, stronger hips, and also want to improve athletic performance, you should prioritize the deadlift.
Both the deadlift and squat improve athletic performance. Still, due to the physical differences between the deadlift and squat, certain athletes with certain skills might benefit more from a single or two-phased squat.
Read also: Does squatting and deadlifting give you a thicker waist?
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Deadlifts or Squats Easier?
Squats might seem the easiest of the two. The squatting motion is a common movement we perform daily and something we are more familiar with. The concepts of hinging and wedging for deadlift could seem more complicated. The immediate need for muscular recruitment also makes the deadlift a harder movement to do.
Can You Replace Deadlifts With Squats?
No, you cannot replace deadlifts with squats. Both movements are different in “pulling” weight and “squatting” weight. The differences between the two movements can cause different muscle groups to be trained.
Do Squats or Deadlifts Build More Muscle?
It’s hard to decide which movement builds more muscle. The squat and deadlift both build tons of muscle. However, the deadlift does train more muscle groups overall. This is due to the pulling motion recruiting the total of the lower back, upper back, hips, legs, and core muscles.
Should You be Able to Squat or Deadlift More?
Based on range of motion, most people can deadlift more than squat. It is also said that most people can squat 90% of their deadlift. A study by Stronger by Science states that since most people deadlift more than they squat, they suggest programming both movements during training.
Should You Do Deadlifts or Squats First?
It depends solely on your goals. For example, if your goal is to improve leg strength, you can do squats first and train deadlifts as a secondary movement to train other body parts.
Can You Squat and Deadlift on the Same Day?
Yes, you can do the squat and deadlift in the same workout. I would advise you to do one exercise heavier and one lighter, though. You should vary the intensity between the two movements to ensure you are not overloading your body and burning out from these two massive compound movements.
Final Thoughts
Although when considering deadlift vs squat require leg drive, they are very different exercises for many reasons. The placement of resistance, range of motion, and muscles used to make them different movements for different results. Neither movement is better, as they provide different results for different lifters.
Because of this, I would recommend using both movements in your programming but varying intensities on different days to improve your performance as a lifter.
About The Author
Joseph Lucero is a Strength Coach and Author and owns Harvesting Strength LLC. He's CSCS Certified, and when he's not helping clients get stronger, he writes about strength and conditioning to help readers. You can connect with him on LinkedIn and Instagram. You can book a free 20-minute consultation with him to see if a custom program would help you achieve your goals.
