Big Guys Don't Squat and Deadlift

[quote]jskrabac wrote:
It’s because outside this little ego driven world of TNation brosefs, seasoned lifters know that it’s about finding what works and not appealing to some mentality that squatting and deadlifting is necessary just to maintain your mancard. [/quote]

…and sometimes it’s because they have had their man card revoked.

Deads and Squats are not needed for their goals, and not everyone needs them…I need them for my goals, If there becomes a time where my goals are not strength oriented and I find that they do nothing to help me achieve my goals…I wont do them…FTR if tricep kickbacks done on a Bosu Ball one legged helped me get to a goal, I would do it…fuck a man card my wife took that from me a decade ago

[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Deads and Squats are not needed for their goals, and not everyone needs them…I need them for my goals, If there becomes a time where my goals are not strength oriented and I find that they do nothing to help me achieve my goals…I wont do them…FTR if tricep kickbacks done on a Bosu Ball one legged helped me get to a goal, I would do it…fuck a man card my wife took that from me a decade ago[/quote]

Best Post.

If you are doing squats but your legs suck…no one is giving you any credit just because you did squats today.

[quote]NikH wrote:
Because big guys in your gym dont need the hormonal advantage of big lifts, they have better supplements[/quote]

Not sure if sarcastic, but, regardless, thought it had already been beaten to death that any exercise that produces an increase in hormone levels (like testosterone), produce such a small and transient spike in the stuff that it may as well be ignored. Some people think that by doing certain exercises they’re may as well be injecting themselves with PED’s - that’s ridiculous.

Anyway, on one of the episodes of the ‘Strength Of Evidence’ podcasts, Bret Contreras reviewed the research and found that Bulgarian split squats produced more testosterone than squats. But both of them still produced negligible spikes in testosterone in the scheme of things.

I think it is also important to realize that the reason why squats and deadlifts are now a staple in resistance training is that they have a greater carryover effect to performance/athletics (aside from being decent mass builders, at the very least), which is becoming the focus of the a large population of resistance training individuals who only seek to be in better shape and don’t pursue bodybuilding per se.

This trend is so strong that it has permeated the world of bodybuilding and every other resistance related discipline. As a result, many (including the OP and myself, to an extent) don’t conceive a well rounded program without squats or deadlifts for any goal. This, as demonstrated by the OP and anecdotal evidence from a lot of veteran bodybuilders, is clearly a wrong premise.

[quote]alternate wrote:

[quote]NikH wrote:
Because big guys in your gym dont need the hormonal advantage of big lifts, they have better supplements[/quote]

Not sure if sarcastic, but, regardless, thought it had already been beaten to death that any exercise that produces an increase in hormone levels (like testosterone), produce such a small and transient spike in the stuff that it may as well be ignored. Some people think that by doing certain exercises they’re may as well be injecting themselves with PED’s - that’s ridiculous.

Anyway, on one of the episodes of the ‘Strength Of Evidence’ podcasts, Bret Contreras reviewed the research and found that Bulgarian split squats produced more testosterone than squats. But it was still negligible in the scheme of things.[/quote]

Good post. If you are doing squats because you think it “produces more testosterone”, just stop. Work on feeling that muscle working way more than bragging about what exercises you do.

There are very tiny people here who think doing a deadlift alone gives them bragging rights in the gym.

It doesn’t. It will always be about what you built and the strength you gained…/…not what specific exercise you did.

Honestly, I don’t know about your gym, but everyone I personally trained at for a significant amount of time always had the big guys doing the big lifts.

Now, if that is not the case at your gym I could see those explanations:

(1) They might be genetically gifted for putting on size and thus don’t feel the need to do the big basics to grow. You know, when you grow easily you don’t feel the need to go the extra mile, you simply do what you enjoy.

(2) They might have built a big foundation from the big lifts and now simply do pumping work.

(3) They might use anabolic steroids. I don’t like to call out anybody and I always give everybody the benefit of the doubt. But I’ve seen too many people develop a decent physique using anabolics and training like pussies to completely rule out that possibility.

(4) They might be young an able to recover easily thus being able to do 3-4 “smaller” exercises to load the muscles that they would load with 1 big compound movement.

I know more little guys in the gym that don’t squat or deadlift than big guys. I don’t see why you’d think there would be any type of correlation here.

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

(3) They might use anabolic steroids. I don’t like to call out anybody and I always give everybody the benefit of the doubt. But I’ve seen too many people develop a decent physique using anabolics and training like pussies to completely rule out that possibility.[/quote]

you aren’t imply that training without squats or deads equates to training “like pussies” are you?

[quote]miked512 wrote:
I know more little guys in the gym that don’t squat or deadlift than big guys. I don’t see why you’d think there would be any type of correlation here.[/quote]

Same here…plus, if they really already got big, they already paid their dues. They can do whatever the fuck they want.

[quote]GrindOverMatter wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

(3) They might use anabolic steroids. I don’t like to call out anybody and I always give everybody the benefit of the doubt. But I’ve seen too many people develop a decent physique using anabolics and training like pussies to completely rule out that possibility.[/quote]

you aren’t imply that training without squats or deads equates to training “like pussies” are you?
[/quote]

Not at all (I don’t deadlift often myself). I’m talking about the 7pm crew that do mostly arm and chest pumping 3x a week. Only doing isolation exercises (except for the bench since it is a macho lift :slight_smile: ).

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
(I don’t deadlift often myself). [/quote]

FOR SHAME!!!

[quote]ChrisWaddle wrote:

[quote]Mr. Walkway wrote:

[quote]ChrisWaddle wrote:

[quote]jskrabac wrote:
It’s because outside this little ego driven world of TNation brosefs, seasoned lifters know that it’s about finding what works and not appealing to some mentality that squatting and deadlifting is necessary just to maintain your mancard. [/quote]

I have found this to be true, I started with squatting and deadlifting and just never really got much out of them.

High rep squatting was certainly better for me than low rep/heavy weight but I just seem to get much better stimulation of leg presses etc.

Deadlifting was probably never the best idea for me anyway as my back is shot to pieces, but I gave it the good old college try and just got back pain from it.[/quote]

you were deadlifting wrong and DEFINITELY squatting wrong…[/quote]

More than likely. I’m tall 6’3, and just never felt right squatting.

[/quote]

lol yeah i bet strongmen who are probably on average taller than you never squat and deadlift cuz “it just doesnt feel right maaan”… please, just admit that either its too exhausting for you or you never bothered fixing technique ever.

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
(I don’t deadlift often myself). [/quote]

FOR SHAME!!![/quote]

I do the Dead-Squat as my main lower body exercise, which is technically a form of deadlift though. But I’ve squatted and deadlifted enough for 2 lifetimes when I was competing in olympic lifting… which kinda brings us back to one thing I said: maybe they used a lot of big basics to grow big, but don’t need them anymore.

It’s because they manage to get big enough on the steroids alone.

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
(I don’t deadlift often myself). [/quote]

FOR SHAME!!![/quote]

I do the Dead-Squat as my main lower body exercise, which is technically a form of deadlift though. But I’ve squatted and deadlifted enough for 2 lifetimes when I was competing in olympic lifting… which kinda brings us back to one thing I said: maybe they used a lot of big basics to grow big, but don’t need them anymore.[/quote]

No argument from me. I have had people make jokes about me because I use the HS machines for chest now over a barbell. They seem to ignore that my chest grew a whole lot from it.

I agree, do what works…not what makes you sound more manly over the internet.

[quote]Kooopa wrote:

[quote]ChrisWaddle wrote:

[quote]Mr. Walkway wrote:

[quote]ChrisWaddle wrote:

[quote]jskrabac wrote:
It’s because outside this little ego driven world of TNation brosefs, seasoned lifters know that it’s about finding what works and not appealing to some mentality that squatting and deadlifting is necessary just to maintain your mancard. [/quote]

I have found this to be true, I started with squatting and deadlifting and just never really got much out of them.

High rep squatting was certainly better for me than low rep/heavy weight but I just seem to get much better stimulation of leg presses etc.

Deadlifting was probably never the best idea for me anyway as my back is shot to pieces, but I gave it the good old college try and just got back pain from it.[/quote]

you were deadlifting wrong and DEFINITELY squatting wrong…[/quote]

More than likely. I’m tall 6’3, and just never felt right squatting.

[/quote]

lol yeah i bet strongmen who are probably on average taller than you never squat and deadlift cuz “it just doesnt feel right maaan”… please, just admit that either its too exhausting for you or you never bothered fixing technique ever.[/quote]

Oh the irony. A couple prime examples of exactly the type of ego I talk about in my OP. Who the fuck said anything about strong man? Of course they hit squats and deadlifts religously. We’re talking about BBing.

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:

[quote]jskrabac wrote:
It’s because outside this little ego driven world of TNation brosefs, seasoned lifters know that it’s about finding what works and not appealing to some mentality that squatting and deadlifting is necessary just to maintain your mancard. [/quote]

…and sometimes it’s because they have had their man card revoked. [/quote]

lol, touche

[quote]jskrabac wrote:
It’s because outside this little ego driven world of TNation brosefs, seasoned lifters know that it’s about finding what works and not appealing to some mentality that squatting and deadlifting is necessary just to maintain your mancard. [/quote]

^I think that above post is pure nonsense. Sure: if other things work then fine. But as a relative noobie (I’m defining “noobie” as any of us who are in our 20s and have been lifting for less than a decade), jskrabac, I seriously doubt you’ve given squatting its due to see whether it ‘works.’

As far as the mancard goes, I don’t see why there would be anything wrong with wanting to be a strong guy even if the main goal is aesthetics. And honestly, the thought of training for aesthetics but not even caring about the main implement to getting there (weightlifting) seems like a really dumb way to invest one’s time–at least if it’s something you’re thinking about doing for the next 20-30 years.

I derive a lot of satisfaction out of being able to pick 500 off the floor, even if that’s not very much. It doesn’t have to be an ego-it can just happen to be the case that some of us enjoy lifting weights, with the squat and deadlift being two of the most prominent and physically challenging lifts that people tend to concentrate on.

Regarding the OP, I think the thread is based on a false premise. Most BBers I’ve seen online who maintain logs (e.g., Shelby, Meadows, Norton, etc) squat and deadlift regularly. However, one should bear in mind that “regularly” for them is not that often:

Take someone like Shelby, who hits legs once a week. By his log, he usually uses one major leg movement and then more isolation-type exercises. That might leave him actually squatting once a month because on the other leg days he’s doing some other primary exercise. That doesn’t mean, however, that he’s ‘not squatting.’

The only poster I can think of on here with impressive wheels who does not squat is a poster from about a year ago named ‘Swolle’–but he also deadlifted really heavy (heavy enough to tear his biceps tendon, ruining a prep–in fact).

Those that would point to Stu should bear in mind that Stu is now 38 and spent a lot of his earlier years lifting heavy.

There is one very large 53 year old at my gym (6’, 240 though not as lean anymore) who was larger in his younger days but doesn’t squat anymore. I asked him his views on leg training a few months ago, and he told me basically that he recommends squatting your balls off until you hit your early 30s–around that point, his body started slowing down a bit and the risk of injury made it less worth the gain at that point. But in his younger days he squatted 650 at his peak–now he has very big legs but only does SLDL, ham curls, lunges, etc. As an older guy, he is adamant (take this with a grain of salt, I suppose) that he needed the heavy squats to build that initial mass, but they were not necessary for retaining that mass.

Just his experience, but take it for what it’s worth. And now, someone would look at him and say “Hey! He’s a huge dude, but he doesn’t squat or deadlift!” but be missing the couple of decades he spent under the bar to build that mass in the first place.

Swolle front squatted 405 for 7 reps about 10 inches below parallel…I think it’s safe to say he squats.