Do squats and deadlifts hit the same body parts?

[Danzig747]

What I am trying to say is if its okay to just do squats and skip the deadlifts vice versa

I know they are both 2 very important exercises, but was wondering if they have the same benefits on the same muscle groups.

Might sound stupid but I asked anyway

[brudman]

What I am trying to say is if its okay to just do squats and skip the deadlifts vice versa

I know they are both 2 very important exercises, but was wondering if they have the same benefits on the same muscle groups.

Might sound stupid but I asked anyway

Anything is "okay." You can do what you want.

That said, squats work your quads, hams, glutes, and lower back when done properly. Deadlifts work every pull muscle in your body plus your quads (about 70% of your body). Doing both is optimal.

[bigtallox]

What I am trying to say is if its okay to just do squats and skip the deadlifts vice versa

No you shouldn't leave one out, in my opinion. Why do you want to? Laziness? You need to be doing both.

[Trans_Isomer]

Squats moreso focus on legs (quads / hamstrings) whereas deadlifts hit those muscle groups, but also bring back into the picture by hitting the lower back (erector spinae)

Theres many different forms of 'deadlifts' as well, where you can isolate particular muscle groups, rack deadlifts (back), stiff legged deadlifts (hamstrings), and so on.

[Danzig747]

No you shouldn't leave one out, in my opinion. Why do you want to? Laziness? You need to be doing both.

just curious

by no means am I lazy.....anymore

[Manc33]

I get confused at times because yeah they do work the "same" muscles, but you gotta do both. Well like the above poster says you don't "have to" do it lol. I noticed though, for me at least as a beginner, this seems to be the only answer to actually gaining strength and size, the two things are of course tied in together along with eating LOADS of clean food. Forget isolation in the very beginning! I was always focusing on isolation exercises, but for some, your weight will not increase and neither will your appetite, you'll wonder why you're not gaining mass and "can't eat enough". If you can't eat enough its because you ain't done enough, its that simple. Think of it in terms of wattage output, the extreme effort deadlifting takes. As always, your body will adapt. Except in the case of the deadlift you're adapting to some serious effort as opposed to silly bicep curls and all that stuff, the way I see it now its almost cosmetic to do that, unless you're really proficient at the main exercises already like deadlift, squat, bent over rows, shoulder press.

Beginners dread the deadlift! The thing is when people actually do it they often say it is their favourite exercise. Thats because it really takes the wind out of your sails - and thats a good thing when done right, with good recovery. I have found that to be true myself, anyway. You gotta be careful with deadlift, it is extremely taxing, people usually only do one set, you could do 3 sets to failure but even the elites would be nearly puking from that, I bet. I started off so weak deadlifting the bar alone (what, 10KG?) was hard enough. You absolutely have to start that way, or suffer injuries. This isn't a race folks.

Yeah the thread is 4 years old but its all info. If only one person on Google finds the thread (thats how I did) and thinks yeah that all sounds familiar, maybe we might be managing to get away from all the stupid gimmicks. Like eating 2g of protein per lb of body weight when you're not even doing the main exercises. God damn it even a guy on juice doing full body probably doesn't even eat that high an amount. Think about your digestive system. Every thing you do wrong harms gains, even if it is a little bit wrong like slightly too much protein or slightly less. You'll crap out the excess? Hmmmm, but you are using energy up to digest useless food there. So instead of recovery being good its actually hindered by too much protein.

Thats enough.

[Jasonk282]

DO what you want, but squats and DL do not hit the same body parts.