Using the Dead Squat to Increase your Performance!

Having been not only a competitor, but also a coach and judge in the realm of powerlifting, I have to say the absolute toughest lift to prepare for is the squat. You begin to unrack the weight, drop your hips to meet the standard of hitting “depth” while having a tremendous load forcing vertical compression down your spine…this is merely a recipe for not only fame but disaster as well! As many successful lifts as we see on social media there are also videos of those who suffer and not only missing the standard but also suffer from intense injury. So with all that being said, it’s important to find ways to improve your successes with squat for many reasons. Besides corrective movements and hip mobility exercises, there needs to be another way to train the squat for massive success, and of all the exercises I could prescribe to any individual, the one that stands out to me the most is the “dead squat”. So what the hell is a dead squat?!

The dead squat is an exercise that requires the lifter to rest the barbell on the safety pins before executing the lift. The dead squat can be done many ways so by the end of this article I will be discussing the modifications of this lift that vary based on your training block and expertise as a lifter. But before I do that, I also want to talk about the anatomy of the lift. The dead squat physiologically mimics the principles of an ordinary squat, however the biggest plot twist has to be that the bar rests on the pins to give you a mega disadvantage. The muscles incorporated in this lift are the leg extensors and hip extensors, meaning the various quadricep muscles and the gluteus maximus. If you aren’t aware of it yet, the gluteus maximus is the biggest muscle of the body, and it is also the most under-developed muscle I feel of most athletes. You typically see this muscle trained through various hip thrusting movements, and although the hip thrust has major benefits, it also has a stigma of being a gender-based movement. Essentially, this underdeveloped muscle sometimes gets neglected but it’s important to make sure to develop the gluteus maximus and this lift can surely do that. So to compliment the anatomy of this lift, it’s important to also understand the biomechanics of this movement as well. 

When you train the dead squat, I first of all recommend always starting at the hooks and unracking the weight to the pins. Sometimes people will let the bar rest on the pins and then they will get underneath the bar but in this case, you aren’t in your strongest position possible to be successful with this lift. This part of this lift is almost non negotiable to me, you must begin at the hooks to unrack the weight first. When you start to descend with the bar to the pins, you aren’t loading your hips and the rest of your anatomy so that when the weight rests on the pins, you’re joints are stacked within the movement pattern you train with a normal squat. So once you come down to the pins, you will feel the bar resting. Don’t let the weight merely rest on the pins, let the weight completely rest meaning your anatomy is a complete rest and then to perform the dead squat, you push against the barbell to lift the weight off the pins from a resting position. That’s why it’s called the dead squat - lifting dead weight off the pins! But with knowing the anatomy and the biomechanics of the movement, we need to address the modifications of this lift to fully understand our exercise selection but we also need to address how low do these damn pins need to be?!

1. Pin Height: The pins need to be (more times than not) either at parallel or 1-2 inches above parallel. Those two positions seem to be the most common of areas that people struggle to become successful with the lift. If you image doing a dead squat a quarter of the way up, this is probably as effective as a rack pull 1-2 inches from lockout - NOT THAT EFFECTIVE AT ALL! Now, that’s of my opinion, but I feel strongly about that opinion as well. Only reason you should be doing a higher variation of the dead squat is if you’re training for an event that does promote this height of the barbell, such as perhaps mimicking the physiology of a yoke lift or walk. 

2. Tempo Dead Squat - BENEFIT FOR CORRECTING MOVEMENT

Let’s say you are not that great at squat and need to learn depth and how to promote a more effective movement pattern…try out the Tempo Dead Squat! This means to unrack the weight, come down to the pins with a slower tempo to build better tension in your squat, then on the pins you completely rest the weight and then lift up with a normal tempo or even speed. This type of modification means you get many benefits of controlling the barbell, learning to consistently hit depth and even learning better rates of force development by coming off the pins faster and faster

3. Heavy Dead Squats - BENEFIT FOR MAXIMUM STRENGTH

The heavier Dead Squats will obviously help with maximum strength as you are loading more and more weight with the disadvantage of a resting bar. The idea is again to set the pins to parallel or even 1-2 inches higher than your normal squat. How to correctly choose either option depends on yoru current squatting ability. I would suggest recording yourself from a side view and watch the lift unfold. If you come out of the hole fast and abruptly slow down, you must dead squat 1-2 inches above parallel. If you get stuck at the bottom of your lift but know deep down you can lock out the weight…then set the pins to parallel to help you get stronger off the bottom. 

But what about the idea of “meeting the standard” and hitting true depth below parallel? I chose to NOT set the pins at this height because I want to overload the anatomy at higher settings so the dead squat isn’t so light in weight

4. Speed Dead Squats - BENEFIT IS TO COMPLIMENT MAXIMUM STRENGTH

So the name of this article implies improving your maximum strength, so why would I do a lift for speed? Remember, when attempting max lifts you aren’t going to attempt a heavy load with a passive approach, you are walking up to the barbell with bad intentions and trying to lift the weight with as much power and speed as possible to get the load to lockout! This is why you see athletes with their sniffing salts and enraged mindsets, they are going all in with the idea to lift the barbell as quick as possible to not put themselves at a disadvantage due to slower muscular contractions. That’s why in addition to heavy dead squats it is important to take lighter loads and learn explosiveness in the same range of motion to help with rates of force development. That’s one of the main differences between good lifters and great lifters - rate of force development and being explosive versus merely strong.