Dropping DL in Favour of Squats

Hey all.

I’ve just recently decided to switch from 5/3/1 which I’ve been following for a while now (close to 12 months almost straight) and try out a more westside approach - ME and RE days for squat and bench, due to my squat and bench stalling and it annoys me some what that my dead lift is by comparison so much better.

At the moment I am pulling 195kg but squatting closer to 130kg. I was hoping to get a few thoughts on the ‘detriment’ of not dead lifting (In terms of it not being done every week, or perhaps even every fortnight) in favour of the ME and RE style training. I am just hoping to bring my squat up to 140kg and over (150/160 would be nice!). I’ve managed 140 a few times, but failed on it just as many.

Do many here do this style of training - no deads as a main lift. Im worried my deadlift will drop, I hate regressing, we all do. I plan on doing another meet on 14 Oct, 12 weeks away. I do meets as I found my first one very enjoyable and I learnt a lot.

What should I expect? Anything, nothing? Any tips or hints are appreciated.

Only way to see for yourself is to try it out. If your squat goes up I wouldn’t see why your deadlift wouldn’t. But that’s too quick of an assumption.

Here is to hoping.

I’ve dropped squats before, as I much prefer to dead lift than squat, but never the other way around. When I did that, my squat just stayed the same. This was a year + ago though, so who knows.

what is your squat form like?
where do you think you are weak?
maybe you have a better build for DL?

the discrepancy is not that great either.

use speed pulls for deads while you work on maxing the squat…will keep form in check.
That plus heavy back and leg work and is ee no reason why your dead would go down much at all if not go up.

After you do your ME movement for squat, do 3x5 or 3x3, or just work up to a heavy single or double on a deadlift variation.

i dropped deadlifting & squatting every week to squatting twice a week and deadlifting every other week. at my last meet my deadlift went up 45lbs from my previous meet and my squat went up 27lbs. go figure.

my point is squatting more and deadlifting less over a span of several months and both still went up. i do hope that my squat starts to catch up with my deadlift. but i also believe i just have a deadlifing body, and the fact that i love that lift and can strain harder with it then any other lift probably effects things too.

[quote]bignate wrote:
use speed pulls for deads while you work on maxing the squat…will keep form in check.
That plus heavy back and leg work and is ee no reason why your dead would go down much at all if not go up.[/quote]

This. I increased my deadlift from 585 to 605 in a few months doing just that. Didn’t go any heavier than 315 for a few sets of 3 on speed pull days, and pulled heavy every 3 weeks.

To be honest none of your lifts are particularly heavy in the scheme of things, so I wouldn’t be looking to drop any of them for the sake of ‘catching up’.

Cheers.

Hoping to be squatting at least 3 plates soon. Then onto bigger and better things!