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Old Forum Hip Hinge vs Squat

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xagunos

xagunos

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Which movement is more beneficial to people and athletes? Both would obviously be optimal but if you had to pick one, which would it be?
 
You need to ask a more specific question.  Everyone ought to be able to perform both movement _patterns_ comfortably.  Which you choose to load and how you load each pattern is going to depend on specific goals for athletes, and neither needs to be loaded heavy for just plain "people."

My own feeling - no science claimed - is that for "people," load the hip hinge heavy and just make sure you can squat well but it needn't be heavy.  For certain kinds of athlete, however, a heavily loaded squat will be more important and their hip hinge could just be a pattern they work on and load lightly.

There is no one right answer to your question without the question becoming much more specific - and even then ...

-S-

 
 
So let's compare the deadlift to the squat. Which would be more beneficial for an athlete?
 
http://www.amazon.com/Super-Squats-Pounds-Muscle-Weeks/dp/0926888005

Super Squats and Power to the People make an interesting compare & contrast.
 
Steve hits the nail on the head - the question is too general for a proper answer - define the the athlete.
 
^^^ Exactly what Steve said.

For athletes, it depends. (On the sport, the individual, which weaknesses should be corrected, etc. etc.)

For the normal individual, being able to hinge well with resistance (deadlifts, swings) and being able to full squat comfortably with no extra load are important (again, to reiterate what Steve said). I think that being able to do full bodyweight pistols easily and comfortably, and deadlifting more than bodyweight, easily and comfortably, would be good for an average person not necessarily driven to be physically capable beyond what's necessary.

"Preparing for whatever life throws" is a loaded term as well. For the great majority of Americans, having to pick up a few bags of groceries or having to take the stairs if the elevator breaks down is probably as demanding as life gets.
 
For the normal individual, being able to hinge well with resistance (deadlifts, swings) and being able to full squat comfortably with no extra load are important (again, to reiterate what Steve said). I think that being able to do full bodyweight pistols easily and comfortably, and deadlifting more than bodyweight, easily and comfortably, would be good for an average person not necessarily driven to be physically capable beyond what’s necessary.

“Preparing for whatever life throws” is a loaded term as well. For the great majority of Americans, having to pick up a few bags of groceries or having to take the stairs if the elevator breaks down is probably as demanding as life gets.
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Have to comment that to me, the above two paragraphs are not even close to congruent. I am 64 years old and cannot remember ever, even once doing anything (outside of my maniac snowboarding and surfing of course) that came anywhere even in the ball park of needing pistol or bodyweight DL range of strength.  And that includes miles of stairs and tons of groceries!
 
Although on second thought, that sort of begs the question, "Are the great majority of Americans even close to normal?"  and that I would have to answer in the negative. Common in no way means normal!
 
Geoffrey, I just came up with those 'numbers' off the top of my head but that is exactly the idea--if you can just do a pistol and DL at least bodyweight, everything else will be much easier--'not even in the same ballpark' is precisely the idea.

It's hard to set standards for an arbitrary 'average' individual. Thus, imo, everyone should simply strive to improve, using whatever time they have as efficiently as possible.

I think the S&S standards are very well thought out regarding weights.
 
There is a danger to these very theorical concepts where you compare exercises (or movement patterns), the more theoretical the less practical.

 

I was under the idea that the squat is a hip hinge, where as perhaps a deadlift is a "truer" hip hinge (less knee flexion I think it's called but I know little of anatomy). I also like the answer Steve gave, load the hip hinge and master the squat pattern. However I just began to load my squat pattern (after pracitising it for a long time, thank you goblet squats) and I'm reaping some real benefits to other movements as well as my squat. Things build on each other in the most complex way.
 
Also, would like to agree wholeheartedly with Aris. S&S seems to be very well though out in regarding to both weight and movement.
 
I have zero quarrel w/ S&S and agree about life being easier if you are strong, but I know a great many people who could not do a pistol nor DL body weight who never ever come across anything they can't do but want to.  Personally, I do like that "standard"; as I mentioned above, "common is not normal" but still, for what currently passes as daily life in U.S.....
 
peanut butter or jelly

peanut butter or chocolate

Air or water

See the issue - many of these things are not only better together but also both can be necessary

Squat or Hinge - yes
 
Geoffrey Levens, a bodyweight deadlift is not a feat of strength.  Even for a middling deadlifter like me,  1.5 x bodyweight is a warmup weight.   If one understands feed-forward tension and can execute a proper hip hinger, a bodyweight deadlift is a perfectly reasonable marker for a non-athlete.   (This doesn't mean that, with no training, everyone should be able to perform a bodyweight deadlift.  But everyone ought to take the time to learn to be able to execute a bodyweight deadlift or heavier - heavier is perfectly doable there is no reason not to learn to do it.)

Alex, "athlete" is not specific enough.  Even naming a sport isn't specific enough.  In general, if one improves strength in basic lifts such as the deadlift and the squat, athletic performance improves but only up to a point.  I believe around 2.5 x bw for the deadlift and 2 x bodyweight for the back squat have been mentioned.   It's reasonable to argue that, for any athlete in any sport, if training that improves numbers up to these points can be undertaken without compromising sport-specific training, then sports performance is very likely to improve.  There's a long history to support this, lots of athletes who train more with weights in their off-seasons then cut back drastically in order to have a sport-specific focus to their training as their competitive season approaches.  This is true-and-true stuff.

And in this case, you almost don't have to pick one - if both your squat and your deadlift are weak, pick one and work on it, or work on them both.  Again, there are so many particulars that matter here, e.g., if you squat like a powerlifter, your deadlift may go up with very little deadlift training.

There is really no generalization to be had here - except one: Strong First.

-S-
 
Alex, it depends.  A high jumper's performance has a better correlation with his quad strength; a sprinter's with his posterior chain's.

Ideally you should do both—but the ratio may vary.
 
Geoffrey Levens, a bodyweight deadlift is not a feat of strength. Even for a middling deadlifter like me, 1.5 x bodyweight is a warmup weight. If one understands feed-forward tension and can execute a proper hip hinger, a bodyweight deadlift is a perfectly reasonable marker for a non-athlete. (This doesn’t mean that, with no training, everyone should be able to perform a bodyweight deadlift. But everyone ought to take the time to learn to be able to execute a bodyweight deadlift or heavier – heavier is perfectly doable there is no reason not to learn to do it.)
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No argument with that at all. Just trying to point out that I know many people who could not DL bodyweight, even w/ proper form and at gun point, who otherwise lead perfectly “normal”, happy, functional lives. Not that I think that is a good thing or would advocate for it, just that it is a truly huge %age of the population
 
No argument with that at all. Just trying to point out that I know many people who could not DL bodyweight, even w/ proper form and at gun point, who otherwise lead perfectly “normal”, happy, functional lives. Not that I think that is a good thing or would advocate for it, just that it is a truly huge %age of the population
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Geoffrey, let's fix that.

-S-
 
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