Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 37 - Why You DON'T Have To Bench, Squat and Deadlift

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome in everybody to the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. I am your host, Danny Matranga. Now, today before we get started, I wanted to first say thank you to everybody who's taken the time to listen to an episode, share an episode to social media, post it to your Instagram story, leave me a review. All of this stuff was able to propel this podcast to top 10 in the world on iTunes fitness podcast charts as of the time of recording. Now, I don't know if it's going to stay there. That stuff fluctuates all the time. But the fact that this podcast in its infancy, it's only two months old, made it that high is thanks to people like you. So I'm pumped. I hope you guys are pumped. Top 10, baby. I've always wanted to do that. That's why I started the podcast all along.

Starting point is 00:00:58 I just wanted to blast the rap air horn meme. So anyway, today's episode is all about why you do not have to squat, bench, and deadlift. Now, it's kind of a clickbaity title, but hear me out. The squat, bench, and the deadlift are known as the big three. They're the three most bang for your buck movements, you could argue, that hit a ton of different muscles. They're required movements for the sport of powerlifting. They're many of the movements we learn first when we start working out, and they can be fantastic for developing strength, muscle, and just overall physicality and fitness. However, not everybody is built to be extremely successful with the squat, the bench press, and the deadlift. What do I mean by that? Well, for example, I am 5'9". I have incredibly good ankle mobility. That allows me, with my short limbs, my relatively short torso, my relatively short limb length,

Starting point is 00:02:03 and my great ankle mobility, to be an amazing squatter based purely on how I'm built. If you took me and you took somebody who was, say, 6'5", with very different limb lengths, you gave us both the same mobility program, and you said, you're going to work for a month to have a great squat. At the end of that month, my squat would aesthetically look much better based purely on levers, how I'm built, and the way my body works together. This isn't to dissuade anybody who's tall from squatting. In fact, quite the opposite. You should certainly work towards being able to do these patterns. And we'll talk more about it as we go. But understand that not every body, that means everybody and every body, is built the same way.

Starting point is 00:02:49 So the way that we express these patterns is going to look quite different. And in some ways, the bench press, the squat, and the deadlift might not be the best option for all of us. So I encourage you guys instead to look at things like patterns. So again, staying in this lane, instead to look at things like patterns. So again, staying in this lane, the bench press is a pushing pattern. It's a horizontal pushing pattern. The squat, the barbell squat is a squat pattern, right? But we would call it a knee dominant movement. It's primarily being done by the knees, sometimes a little bit of help from the hips. Then you have your deadlift, which is a hinge pattern. So we have three patterns of push, a squat or a knee dominant, and a hinge. And understand

Starting point is 00:03:30 that while the bench press, barbell bench press, barbell back squat, and barbell deadlift are fundamental tenants of powerlifting and their great movements, they're not the only push, squat, and hinge movement that we can do to train our bodies. And for some people, they may not be optimal, but because of the dogmatism, the appeal to authority, how baked into physical culture these movements are, we want to be great at them. We really want to do them, and we really want to work on them. I have friends, colleagues, coaches, and clients who are so married to this idea of, I really want to be great to this idea of i really want to be great at this movement i really want to be a great squatter i really want to be a great deadlifter and it's like

Starting point is 00:04:10 but at the same time they also want to build a lot of muscle and unfortunately because they don't have the skeletal structures the anatomy and the leverage to be a tremendous squatter and a tremendous deadlifter they're only really okay they spend so much time working on those. They don't have a lot of time for hypertrophy work or accessory work. And when they are doing those movements, because of their build, the way they're structured, they have a hard time applying tension to the musculature they want. It's kind of more of a grind than it needs to be. And so they slog away at these movements that they're not entirely built for. And again, this isn't to say that you don't do the mobility work to replace these movements or to be, I

Starting point is 00:04:51 shouldn't say replace, to become better at these movements. It doesn't mean that you don't do these movements. All I'm saying is that ask yourself this question, are the bench squat and the deadlift, if I'm not a power lifter, movements that I should be spending a tremendous amount of time trying to become great at if they simply just after years of trial and error aren't agreeing with my body or giving me tremendous results. I remember I went to the Bay Area Sports Performance Symposium in 2018 and Corey Schlesinger, who now works for the Phoenix Suns at the time, was working with Stanford men's basketball. He was talking about how he has different movement patterns for each one of his athletes based on how they move, the way they're built, and the length of their body. And he was talking about the hex bar. He

Starting point is 00:05:35 said, I have my seven footers hex bar deadlift because squats and seven footers don't mix. And I thought to myself, well, that's kind of obvious, right? You would kind of think that being seven feet tall and doing a barbell back squat might be a little bit difficult. But then I realized, even if you're not seven feet tall, you might have levers and limb lengths that relatively speaking, are very similar to a seven footer. If you're all legs, squats are going to be really tough. If you're all deadlifts, I'm sorry, if you're all legs, deadlifts are going to be really tough. If you're all arms and you're gangly, bench press is going to be really tough. But you can still develop muscles only if you relinquish that dogmatic attachment to those movements. So let's again, let's move on to talking about patterns here, because this is a better way to look at it. Hey guys, just wanted to take a quick second to say thanks so

Starting point is 00:06:25 much for listening to the podcast. And if you're finding value, it would mean the world to me if you would share it on your social media. Simply screenshot whatever platform you're listening to and share the episode to your Instagram story or share it to Facebook. But be sure to tag me so I can say thanks and we can chat it up about what you liked and how I can continue to improve. Thanks so much for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. While the bench squat and deadlift are fine movements, they're simply movement patterns. And we talked about it. The bench represents a push, a horizontal push. The squat represents a squat pattern. The deadlift represents a hinge pattern. So if we want to select a push exercise that might be better, we can do things like dumbbell bench press, push-ups,

Starting point is 00:07:11 things that allow us to have progressive overload without some of the wear and tear that's associated with barbell bench press, particularly for longer limb people. Okay, then we have squats. The barbell back squat doesn't agree with everybody. We have analogs like back squats, front squats, goblet squats, hex barbell back squat doesn't agree with everybody. We have analogs like back squats, front squats, goblet squats, hex bar deadlifts, all great. And if the barbell deadlift doesn't agree with you, which for many people it's quite difficult, we have things like

Starting point is 00:07:35 Romanian deadlifts, hex bar deadlifts with a more hip bias, kettlebell swings, dumbbell Romanian deadlifts, lots of options. So this should lay a foundation for you to think to yourself like, okay, man, yes, there are movements that I perhaps want to be better at that are foundational for the weightlifting culture, but maybe they don't agree too much with my body and I recurrently don't feel like I'm doing them well. They leave me more sore than I'd like, they put a wear and tear on my soft tissues, my back always hurts, my elbows always hurt, blah, blah, blah. I would implore you to consider choosing different variations of those movements and training

Starting point is 00:08:17 patterns instead of being dogmatically attached to having to do certain lengths. It's simply not a requirement to have great fitness. You don't have to be a great bench presser. You don't have to be a great barbell squatter. You don't have to be a great barbell deadlifter. The only sport that requires you to be good at those things is powerlifting. If you just want to be fit, you want to be healthy, you want to build muscle, there's a million other movements you can do. And if they agree more so with your body, fantastic. That does not make you a pussy or mean you're copping out or you're not doing the big three or you're not. It's not sacrilege. Understand that. them they're failing. But in fact, they might be better off focusing on movements that just simply agree better with their biomechanics in the way they are built. And again, we've talked about tall people quite a bit. So let's go back to that. So we'll talk about a bench press. You've got

Starting point is 00:09:13 somebody with really long arms. It's not easy to do a barbell bench press when you have really long arms. You have to move the bar further. If your job is powerlifting, you might be SOL as a tall person. It might be really difficult. However, if you just want to build your chest, you might do better with something like a dumbbell press. That's fine. If you want to build your thighs or your quads, you might do better with some lunges, or then you might with a barbell back squat. So all of this to say, you aren't doing yourself any favors by remaining dogmatically attached to anything. Train patterns, train muscles. Don't feel like you have to train movements because other people do it because it's the way the industry says things need to be done.

Starting point is 00:10:03 Okay. That's bullshit. Should you be able to do a bench press, a squat and a deadlift without being in pain or hurting? Yes. Do you need to load those up and go super heavy and then look beautiful? No. The way that your body is built is going to be somewhat unique and that might dictate what movements work better. So I would say to wrap things up, because this is a microcast, do the best that you can to identify the push pattern, the hinge pattern, the squat pattern that work best for your body. Spend a little bit more time doing those. You can still bench, you can still squat, you can still deadlift. If those are the ones that work best for your body,

Starting point is 00:10:40 fuck yeah, go for it. Crush them. They're amazing lifts. If not, maybe you still do them, but you just don't do them as much. You try to find patterns that work a little bit better. That's it, guys. So that was today's microcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Have a tremendous rest of your day. Thanks again for tuning in to the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. These microcasts are going to come in here and there. I really do hope you enjoyed it. Have a good one. Stay tuned. Lots more coming. Do me a favor. Leave me a five-star rating and review on iTunes. It makes a huge difference. Have a great one. Be healthy. Stay fit. See you guys.

Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 37 - Why You DON'T Have To Bench, Squat and Deadlift

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