Deadlift/Squat/Human evolution pondering...

[Scrawn78]

I was thinking about how the human body has evolved, and also why most programs including Starting Strength seem to place more value on the squat than the deadlift.

I can't think of how it would ever have been useful - in the million or so years of human evolution - to be placing a large weight high on the back and then sitting down and up with it repeatedly. I can however, think of how it would have been extremely useful (or essential) to have been able to just pick up heavy things off the ground.

If we accept that the body is the way it is because of what our ancestors have been doing over the past million years, and that the strongest muscles are most likely tuned to doing functional stuff, why SQUAT three days a week to get stronger, and not DEADLIFT three days a week?

I know there's the recovery issue, but the intensity of deadlifting could be varied. Just that, if I were to ignore the prevailing weight lifting fashions - it would seem much more logical to focus on deadlifting.

[Mark Rippetoe]

It would seem logical, if the purpose was to mimic a functional movement. Squats work better than deadlifts because they are a more complete ROM. You people have got to get past the idea that the most efficient exercises MIMIC the motion you perceive to be functional. The best exercise is the one that works the most muscle mass over the longest ROM, that allows the lifter to use the most weight, and therefore get the strongest. This may not necessarily mean the exercise that allows the use of the most weight.

[51M0n]

It would seem logical, if the purpose was to mimic a functional movement. Squats work better than deadlifts because they are a more complete ROM. You people have got to get past the idea that the most efficient exercises MIMIC the motion you perceive to be functional. The best exercise is the one that works the most muscle mass over the longest ROM, that allows the lifter to use the most weight, and therefore get the strongest. This may not necessarily mean the exercise that allows the use of the most weight.

Rip, if for some bizarre reason you couldn't squat, how would something like a deficit deadlift (which increases the ROM) go? Although thinking about it, in order to get a ROM the same as a squat the bar would probably have to be set lower than the foot itself (unless you had t-rex arms).

[Mark Rippetoe]

Sure, if, for some bizarre reason, you couldn't squat.

[Joe Murphy]

I can't think of how it would ever have been useful - in the million or so years of human evolution - to be placing a large weight high on the back and then sitting down and up with it repeatedly.

Clearly you've never been a radio operator in a Ranger unit.

[Troy]

I can't think of how it would ever have been useful - in the million or so years of human evolution - to be placing a large weight high on the back and then sitting down and up with it repeatedly. I can however, think of how it would have been extremely useful (or essential) to have been able to just pick up heavy things off the ground.

What about killin a wild boar or deer with a bow and arrow, and then squatting down pulling the dead animal over your shoulders and standing up and then walking with it up a hill?
If it was only one hunter and he (or she) needs to take it back to camp, then the back squat would be similar.. no?

[tertius]

While Rip is correct that squatting is awesome because it's just a more complete exercise than the deadlift, I think OP is drastically underestimating the need of early primates to carry heavy weights a fair distance. Which is easier done on the shoulders/head than in the hands. Hunters carry game on their shoulders. Parents carry children this way. You will almost never see a human being carry a heavy weight in the hands if they can somehow get it on their back or up on their shoulders.

[Kyle Schuant]

If you wish to mimic millions of years of evolution, I suggest you discard your clothes, make a stone knife, spear and axe, and go and live on the east African plains eating nothing you cannot catch or gather, drinking and washing yourself from only fresh water streams and springs, and with only the shelter you can make with your hands and stone tools.

Just as we developed more sophisticated tools for making things and giving us food and shelter, so too with physical training.

[OCG]

Rip, if for some bizarre reason you couldn't squat, how would something like a deficit deadlift (which increases the ROM) go? Although thinking about it, in order to get a ROM the same as a squat the bar would probably have to be set lower than the foot itself (unless you had t-rex arms).

Hex bar.

[Archaeosteve]

If we accept that the body is the way it is because of what our ancestors have been doing over the past million years, and that the strongest muscles are most likely tuned to doing functional stuff

This is more of a Lamarckian perspective than it is a modern evolutionary mechanism. Theres a widespread conception that the human body is a well engineered machine optimally designed for certain tasks. A lot of our musculature has been sort of hastily rearranged to accommodate bipedalism, and many of our bones never really caught up either. We also dont evolve "strength" as much as genes for increases capacity for the strength of certain muscle groups may become advantageous. If there is a reproductive advantage from having this increases capacity, then maybe the gene will be passed on.

This has probably not been going on for at least a few hundred thousand years, or more likely a few million. There are changes in patellae thickness a increased quadriceps femoris moment arms associated with early bipedal hominins, and some have proposed this is related to tree climbing. A really good paper (interestingly titled Neandertal Knees: Powerlifters in the Pliestocene?) from Trinkaus and Rhoades (1999), and lot of research since, has revealed that there really arent any major differences in any aspect of "strength" between any of the archaic homo genera. In fact the modern homo sapien mechanical capacity for leg strength as best we can measure from bone morphology, hasnt changed a whole lot over the last couple hundred thousand years.

The skeletal evidence does show that humans and neandertals were pretty fucking strong in many respects, but this was from a life of wrestling wooley rhinos and that kind of thing. Upper paleolithic human hands are notorious for looking like there was lots of weight being supported in the hands-much like dragging massive sleds would produce. So "deadlifting" may have been important then, but probably not so much so that it wouldve changed our genetic makeup, and it was too recent to really affect much anyways.

So I think my point, if there is one, no movement was so "functionally important" in our recent evolution that it should be prioritized for that reason. Some movements make the best of the mess that is the human body, and are able to most effectively increase its strength. Given that every single qualified person has confirmed ten million times over that the squat does this, and should be a training priority, I would venture to guess that the squat is an example of such a movement. Again, not because we are conditioned to squat from our evolution, but because evolution left us with a body that benefits so tremendously from squatting.