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Why do people put so much emphasis on the squat. Isn't the p-chain just as important for jumping as quads? Also what do you guys think is the dl to squat ratio athletes should be aiming for (specifically aiming this at Lance and Adarqui!)?

In my experience, the deadlift does pretty much nothing for my jump. I learned from trial and error, and as my squat goes up, my jump directly correlates with it. So I just dropped deadlifting altogether and added an extra day of squatting per week, and my gains accelerated. I squat deep, however, so don't think I'm getting zero p-chain work. In fact, my glutes have been naturally huge since I was a kid, and they continue to grow with my quads. My hamstrings, however, are REALLY little lacking, so I'll add GHR's in the future... Squat Mon/Fri and GHR Wed. Something like that.

I get this question a lot  The deadlift can be a nice exercise but not everyone is suited for it.  The problem is the carryover is very technique dependent. It's possible to deadlift a lot of weight with nary any lower body involvement whatsoever. Hell I had a guy I used to train that could deadlift 500 at 160 and his legs were actually quite weak. The squat is more difficult to screw up.  Generally speaking the better the deadlifter the less lower body involvement, as good deadlifters are built in a way they barely have to bend their knees at all to reach the bar. Not to mention most people have less than optimal deadlift technique to begin with.  You can have less than optimal squat technique but you're still gonna get a pretty good lower body stimulus.

Why do people put so much emphasis on the squat. Isn't the p-chain just as important for jumping as quads? Also what do you guys think is the dl to squat ratio athletes should be aiming for (specifically aiming this at Lance and Adarqui!)?

  The problems with the deadlift, specifically using it as your main lift to supplement vertical jump training, is a.) it starts from a dead stop, there is no reversal or amortization phase as there is in the squat  b.) like Kelly said, the technique and individual levers and structures make it very easy for lifters to turn it into a low back dominant lift, or lift with very limited rom. c.) the limited quad activity (specifically bad in the case of 2 leg jumps).  

 Some people do well with deadlifts, and you can use a touch and go technique or starting at the top and stopping at mid shin technique to get around the dead stop, but depending on your structure you may still have several other issues with your technique being as beneficial as a squat to your jumping. I have always found that squats supplemented with rdl have been much better for this cause, trap bar deadlift is another good option with the extra quad involvement but we do them without stopping on the floor if vertical jumping is the goal.

  Any type of lift that limits the quad activity (box squat or squat with very little forward knee travel, deadlift, etc.) is not going to be nearly as beneficial as as one with more balanced quad and pchain emphasis imo, specifically for 2 leg jumps.  The squat is just a nice balance of the two when performed correctly for an athlete, and deadlifts or deadlift variations can supplement that really well.


 Btw, if youre squatting deep enough, it is highly likely that your deadlift will go up along with your squat, if you only deadlift it is not as likely that your squat will go up in the same fashion.

Quote from: LanceSTS on February 19, 2011, 05:00:07 pm

Btw, if youre squatting deep enough, it is highly likely that your deadlift will go up along with your squat, if you only deadlift it is not as likely that your squat will go up in the same fashion.

Definitely, since a "good" deadlift is like a 1/4 squat, so it doesn't have as much (if any) carryover to a full squat as a full squat does to a deadlift.

The point is - could a deadlift and deadlift alone be used to gain muscle/strength (forget about jump specificity and all that, just pure muscle)?

yes, it may build more muscle in areas less specific to vertical jumping though, and leave other important muscle groups out.  But a deadlift can build muscle, yes.

Because, if it can, then you can just deadlift to gain muscle and do plyos to tweak and tune that muscle to act explosively.

For example, if you were to do depth jumps followed by deadlifts, then you'd get quad and calf stimuli by depth jumping, and also much more specificity than a squat for jumps, and deadlifts for the posterior chain as muscle growth stimuli.

That might work for some, the question was about deadlift VS SQUATS though, specifcally for jumping, and squatting is going to in most cases be a much more efficient tool for the task at hand.  You can hammer in a nail with a screw driver if you want to, a hammer is going to be a more efficient choice for most thought.

Btw, if youre squatting deep enough, it is highly likely that your deadlift will go up along with your squat, if you only deadlift it is not as likely that your squat will go up in the same fashion.

So if we had to choose one squatting would be the one?
Also what is your thoughts about squatting 3x/wk vs 2x/wk for beginners (160 lb DL) that also spend a lot of time on sport specific work (about 2 hours a day on basketball)

Hey lance I was wondering if you could collaborate with me to make a customized program.
(Beware though, I have an idea of what I want.)

My doc said don't do deadlifts cuz my couzin blowed his back out doing them....now he's in a wheelchair.......he was taking cleatine too with deadlifts and the doc said his kidneys are almost blowed out too from it.....plus it made his temper really bad and he wanted to kick everybody's ass and creatin made him put some other guy in the hospital cuz he went off playin a pickup game..

now he has blowed out kidneys and blowed out back and he's only 16

dont' do deadlifts and cleatine braa11!!