Ditto everything @kleinhound said re: conditioning vs. cardio.
Conditioning seems to improve my lungs (subjective) and cardio improves my heart (measured my resting rate)
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Fantastic analogy 
Yes! Good observation. When I regularly do MetCon/HIIT conditioning, I suck wind less during all other activities, including cardio. Regular LISS drops my resting heart rate, too.
Good discussion and info. Thanks, @kleinhound and @TrainForPain
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Conditioning is about improving your ability to perform/recover from an activity. Conditioning for lifting could be sled dragging, prowler pushing, circuit training, etc. That would be poor conditioning for something like a marathon runner (or, at least, less than ideal conditioning). Cardio, meanwhile, is about improving cardiovascular fitness. Running would be fine cardio for any individual, regardless of training goal.
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Well, for one the height of the bar (due to thickness of the plates) is entirely abitrary.
More importantly, however, is the fact that there is nothing a deadlift can do that couldn’t better trained by another lift. The only real reason to straight bar deadlift from the floor is if the straight bar deadlift is an end in itself. For example, powerlifters should practice straight bar deadlifts.
Want power? You’re better off with Olympic lifts and jumps
Want to improve sprinting and jumping? You’re better off with trap bar deadlifts, half squats and sprinting itself
Want to get jacked? You’re better off with RDLs and row variations
Etc.
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Exactly. Or, as @T3hPwnisher says (paraphrasing): ‘You don’t DL in order to get big and strong; you get big and strong in order to DL.’
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I wish my gym had a trap-bar. It has a log though…
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I am not with you on any of that. There are a lot of things that are helped indirectly by heavy DL’s. I think that most guys are too focussed on the action=result idea. Sure, DB curls will make your biceps stronger/bigger. What else do they do? Squats do a lot of indirect things as well. Straight bar DL’s will do more for your upper back than any other form of DL, They also help your Power Cleans/Cleans/Snatches/grip/core. In fact, you will get more ab/core development (At least from a functional standpoint) from compound work like Conventional DL’s and squats than any direct ab work variation that exists out there. You also get a fairly massive hoemone response over your whole body from the work, much like you do with Squats, only with fewer issues like with the quad tendons or patellar tendons from squatting.
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Well said @carlbm! Most people will look at you weird for turning down a drink or food, or doing something outside of THEIR comfort zone. But, if you believe it’s right for you, do it and know you’ll be better for it! And you’re correct the food example of brining my cooler to a restaurant is during contest prep only, off season I’m a little more lenient 
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Plus you factor in individual leverages per person… the benefits will vary. Some guys will thrive on them others it will beat the hell out of them. But that goes for allot of other lifts also.
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So conditioning is somewhat more activity-specific, whereas cardio’s effects are more generalized. There’s some carryover between the two, but their focuses differ. Is that accurate?
There CAN be carryover between the two, but that’s more by coincidence than anything else. If what is lacking in your ability to recover for your chosen activity is cardiovascular fitness, your conditioning will have elements of cardio contained in it. However, if you’re lacking in local muscular endurance instead, your conditioning will have a different approach/benefit than cardio.
I wouldn’t say cardio’s effects are generalize. It’s specific: cardiovascular health. It’s more that the METHODS of cardio are generalized. Lots of things can raise your heart rate and get your lungs going. For conditioning, there’s going to be a continuum of effectiveness.
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That makes sense. Conditioning applies to performing a specific task more effectively. The physical effects and body systems impacted will vary, depending on the activity and its related conditioning.
Gotcha! I realized why I’m confused; the weaker link for me is often cardiovascular endurance, so all conditioning AND cardio are felt first and foremost in my heart and lungs.
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But that’s what I’m saying. Deadlifts aren’t a great exercise for any one goal, but are an okay exercise for a bunch of other goals. I’d rather just do those other exercises and get the best stimulus possible.
Okay, so if we’re going to start treating Olympic lifts as our end/our goal, why don’t high level olympic lifters deadlift? 
If power/jumping/speed is our goal, let’s do a thought experiment. We each get an identical twin and you train one of them with lots of deadlifts. I train the other with lots of jumps and power cleans. Which twin will jump the highest 4 months from now?
But what does functional even mean? The type of “core strength” I need to be a good sprinter or thrower is totally different to the “core strength” I need to be a good deadlifter. Sure, the trunk development I’ll get from deadlifts is helpful for deadlifts, but that’s just specificity, which only matters if deadlifts are an end in themselves.
Hormonal responses to exercise have a minimal effect on hypertrophy. Certainly, they have a far smaller effect on growth than producing mechanical tension from muscles through a full range of motion, which a conventional deadlift from the floor cannot do as effectively as other exercises.
All that’s then telling me is that deadlifts aren’t as good of a quad stimulus as squats. I know I could use isometrics or properly-selected correctives to make fairly immediate changes in someone’s pain, which would then allow me/my clients to squat. Worst comes to worst, we can replace squats which another exercise that provides a better stimulus for growth than deadlifts
Okay, but that doesn’t necessarily make them a great upper back exercise, just better than a bunch of other deadlift variations.
If we took two identical twins, and I gave one a lots of bent-over rows and you gave the other lots of deadlifts, who would have better back development?
For reference:
Didn’t deadlift from the floor and had the densest/thickest back the world has ever seen
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What makes you think that they don’r Deadlift? They certainly used to. You do some things to build speed and explosive power, but overload using DL helps the pull portion. Even if it’s some partial variation. They also, from what I have seen, do front and back squats in excess of what they can clean. Same reason. Deadlifts won’t help you jump, but they will condition your grip and Golgi response to handle more weight.
I get more abdominal and core development from Deads than any possible quantity of crunches/Turkish getups/situps/leg lifts. Time under tension for the core muscles, although I believe Overhead Squats are even better for it.
I think you will change your mind on that with time. You certainly will get less without hormonal response.
I guarantee that there are plenty of guys outside of BBing with more back muscle. Don’t confuse what someone bothers to display with what exists. And I don’t know that his back was in any way bigger or better than Coleman’s.
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Ronnie Coleman did standard deads. Heavy standard deads. He had a bad ass back and was crazy strong. I think with most lifts its YMMV. I like trap bar work but again that’s not for everyone.
Maybe it should be you don’t have to live and die by the big 4. Go for what works for you. Or pick movements that fit your goals?
Acute hormonal response from exercise has been proven not to have a noticeable effect on muscle growth. That’s what he’s saying: Not that hormones don’t play a role.
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Not anymore mate. At the very least, the majority of good oly lifters have swapped conventional deadlifts for RDLs and/or good morning.
No, because the position in the first pull is different to any positions in the deadlift. The position in the 2nd pull (the power position) is also different to any positions in the deadlift
They do perform front and back squats all the time, but primarily so that they can recover from the catch. There is also a decent degree of carryover between the 2nd pull and the front/high-bar squat. Positionally, front and back squats match Olympic lifts, but DLs don’t.
Also, deadlifts incur a higher fatigue compared to front/high bar squats, so the stimulus:fatigue ratio for DLs for Olympic lifting isn’t great.
I never said anything about Turkish get-ups, I think they’re pretty stupid. What I was saying is that implying that there is one true definition of core “function” doesn’t work, since “function” relates to an outcome. If my one goal in life is to be great at sit-ups, then sit-ups provide a “functional” core training stimulus. If my one goal is to be a good deadlifter, deadlifts are provide a “functional” core training stimulus. If my goal was to be a good sprinter/jumper/thrower/runner, then activities that rely on a strong abdominal brace are not functional.
Let’s say that hormonal response to exercise will account for 5% of the results (which is generous). We know that achieving high degrees of mechanical tension (being contractile force from muscle fibres), through a full contractile range, at a slow speed is the vast majority of requirements for a hypertrophy stimulus. If I’m doing deadlifts, I’m missing out on 2/3 of those factors, so that 5% benefit (which again, is generous), is meaningless.
But, that doesn’t work for a couple of reasons. If we want to say that GH is a requirement for hypertrophy, it can only be because GH indirectly upregulates production of IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1). However, muscle hypertrophy can occur in the absence of functioning IGF-1 receptors, so it clearly isn’t vital. Additionally, IGF-1 primarily mediates muscle growth by increasing muscle cell nuclei. We can increase muscle cell nuclei by chasing muscle damage, and we can chase muscle damage by loading a muscle in its stretched position. Therefore, the acute hormonal benefits of a deadlift can be replicated without a hormonal response, by an exercise like an RDL. Additionally, the RDL is better able to apply mechanical tension to target areas like the hamstrings. Hence, I think deadlifts are not the best choice.
Also, if we want to make an argument for hormone-mediated anabolism, we also need to accept that all training should therefore last less than 45 minutes, or else we face a crash in testosterone and growth hormone. Lots and lots and jacked people train for longer than 45 minutes.
Okay, 100% I’ll accept this argument, but:
Who’s getting the jackedest back?
That’s exactly what I’m trying to say here. I do not believe that conventional deadlifts from the floor are the best exercise selection to pursue most goals, except for being a stronger at conventional deadlifts from the floor
I have to comment on this. If you wanna improve your clean or snatch numbers through a deadlift, your deadlift better be damn near close to the way you do your initial pull with those lifts. There was a time when my deadlift was 455 pounds but I couldn’t clean 205, and a time when my clean was 205 pounds but my deadlift wasn’t even four plates. It’s specificity. If you want to truly overload your back muscles and your pulling performance for the Olympic lifts, you gotta do the explosive pull variations, NOT slow-butt deadlifts. I’m speaking from experience this time.
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Quite possibly you are right. But if you are, I do not get why a lot of knowledgeable coaches has it as one of the core components of their strength building programs (5/3/1, Starting strength etc).
I thinkt that this…
… is why - probably something to do with indirect systemic benefits of doing heavy compounds.
Edit: Ok, I can see that you have continued a detailed discussion, that I did not bother reading before responding…
Because those “programs” (I don’t consider 5/3/1 to be a program but rather a framework/philosophy) are geared towards people seeking the ability to express strength in those particular lifts?
But it’s quite possible to tit-for-tat your argument with that there are knowledgeable coaches that agree with what @j4gga2 is saying so 
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