Focusing on press & deadlift / progress without bench or squat

[zinedine kilbane]

Hi Andy,

General Question:
Just wondering if you have any experience with people driving progress on their press and deadlift without directly progressing their squat or bench? Most programmes seem to have squats and bench as the main stressors/drivers for progress but if they are already decently strong can you neglect them and still improve your other lifts?

Possibly relevant info:
Late intermediate here that has been doing starting strength/texas method based programmes for a few years. So tonnes of volume on squats and bench. Got me to a semi respectable 475lb squat and 310lb bench at bodyweight of about 200lbs. My deadlift and press are less impressive at 475lbs and 175lbs respectively so I was looking to focus on them for a bit to try and drive them up. I am also just a bit burnt out on squats and bench so am thinking about dropping them out completely or just using their variants as accessory exercises for a few months.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Yeah, I've known some pretty good deadlifters who didn't squat, just deadlifted. I think for most it probably doesn't work that well. And most of those guys were a little older and had spent some time building a good squat in the past and for whatever reason, abandoned the squat and just deadlifted. Probably a combo of not wanting to squat in competition due to age (understandable) and a little bit of not giving a fuck.

[Dag]

For those older lifters you used as an example, how much do you think not squatting hampers their deadlift, if at all? This is assuming they are able to squat but for whatever reason don't want to.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

I think it does. For me and almost every client I've ever trained, as the squat goes, so goes the DL. The inverse doesn't hold true.

I think they probably don't know how to perform squats correctly and what they did at 25 no longer feels comfortable at 50. And they probably don't know how to program correctly either as they age so they just stop squatting.