First, to make it clear, a squat should be low enough that you leave a stain on the gym surface. If I can see the daylight between your upper hamstrings and your Achilles tendons, you are not squatting low enough.
Lets look at the evidence. To make an opinion, you need to look at both sides of the argument. The following points are in no particular order.
· The squat allows to stretch more connective tissue structures. One of the muscles well stretched by full squats is the piriformis. More enlightened physiotherapists will confirm that poor flexibility in the piriformis is associated to lower back pain.
The endocrine anabolic response is greater in the squat for a given R.M. load.
· The deadlift involves more muscle groups than the squat. Especially the scapulae retractors and the grip muscles. However the quads and hamstrings get less overload than the squats.
· However, in the squat, the grip does not become the limiting factor on how much load one can use.
· You can’t get pinned in the deadlift.
· There are more variations of the squat as there are of the deadlift. When you coach well paid athletes, who come from a culture where strength is not well implemented, variations are your savior. You can easily overload different points of the strength curve with switching, for example, from an Olympic bar to a Safety Squat bar, adding chains, bands etc… If the athlete has poor shoulder flexibility the Buffalo bar comes in handy.
· Only the full squats overloads the VMO and hamstrings, this is why they transfer more to improve short-term speed and jumping ability. So for athletic performance, the squat wins hands down.
· Squat more and your deadlift will improve. The reverse is not true.
· Ankle mobility, according to Swedish sports scientists is the best predictor to avoid all lower extremity injuries. You can only squat properly if you have flexible ankles.
· The ability to squat fully has been shown to be inversely proportionate to the incidence of joint degeneration in the knees and hip joints.
· The deadlifts allows for a greater variation in rep range than the squat; high reps front squats are suicidal.
· The deadlift has more carry over to certain high strength tasks that a correction officer or a firefighter may be asked to do.
· Pure eccentric work is easier to perform safely in the squat that in the deadlift.
· Trainees, because they don’t have to worry about getting pinned, tend to go more to the limit in deadlifts than squats. However, how you finish your set of squats tells me loads how your ability to overcome adversity. It takes far more courage to squat max loads than it does to deadlift max loads. It's easy to drop a deadlift mid rep. How one attacks the sticking point in the squat distinguishes the men from the boys. Want to find the “Rudy” on your team? He is the one who do 5 great reps in the front squats with his 3 R.M. load! Wussies do 3 reps with 5 R.M. loads, and… piss and moan about how hard the set was.
· The deadlift does not need a rack.
· A well educated and trained strength coach can read way more information from a squat than a deadlift as it pertains to muscle imbalances or deficits.
· When pressed for time, for Olympic athletes, I pick the squat over the deadlift. The two athletes I coached which I am most proud of are Dwight Phillips and Adam Nelson, both Olympic Gold medalist in track and field. Their programs centered around performance improvements in the squats.
In conclusion, for athletic performance, and long term joint health, I vote for the squat. On the other hand, if one does the deadlift with a snatch grip on a 10-15 cm high platform, you get the hybrid lift combination of both lifts to get maximal results. With the right grip and elevation, you start from a deep squat position. So one could argue that snatch grip deadlifts is the most bang for your buck lower extremity lift.
P.S. integrating both does not make you a bad person.
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