Deadlift or squat for mass

The short answer is to do both. The better lift for lifting for mass is the squat. Try trap bar deadlifts instead of barbell deadlifts if your main goal is mass to lower back pain.

What is your why

Before we go I to the details of whether you should squat or deadlift for mass let me ask you a couple of questions:

Why do you want to squat
Why do you want to deadlift
Why do you want to put on mass
Why do you want to get stronger
What happens when you do
What happens when you don’t

This may seem like some bizarre trivia or interrogation or you. However, these questions lie at the heart of success and fulfillment through your training. Once you know why you train and what difference it makes to your life it becomes meaning. When it becomes meaning it will be easier for you to stay committed long term. That is where success lies. Most people think about their lives like this:

What do I want
How do I get it
Why do I want it

This thought pattern will leave you living with your impulses. What you want constantly changed based on your surroundings and mood. Read Daniel Kahneman's thinking fast and slow to get better insight into this. If you want to be happier and your life to be more meaningful change your thought pattern to:

Why do you want something?
How do you get it?
What do you need to do?

This will focus on the long-term results and a meaningful goal set. Life will beat you down and you have to make it through the times to reach your long-term goals. Fitness is one of the areas where the results are not instant but delayed. If you are not convinced yet check out the book Nudge and Simon Sinek's TED talk on the golden circle. He makes a very compelling case telling the story of the Wright brothers.

Deadlift

The deadlift is one of the most iconic movements with a barbell out there. It is a manifestation of pure strength and power. Picking up something heavy from the ground will always be very satisfying and the deadlift fits the bill. When most people hear the word deadlift the think of the conventional deadlift. There are more variations then this one:

Trap bar deadlift
Chained deadlifts
Banded deadlifts
Sumo deadlifts
Deficit Deadlifts
Block Pulls
Rack Pulls
Hack squats
Between the legs deadlifts
Kettlebell deadlifts
Dumbbell deadlifts
Partial deadlifts

The list is endless based on what you need are and how you want to modify it. Basic movement is to pick something heavy off the ground with both feet planted. The deadlift mainly train the quads, hamstrings, lower back and traps. The emphasis is on the muscles on the back of your body. If you want to learn more about the deadlift check out:

Ed Coan
Eddie Hall
Dan Green
Pete Rubbish
Calgary barbell
Juggernaut Training systems
Layne Norton
Supertraining06

Learn from as many sources as you can. It will make you a better lifter and person. There are no ultimate truths, just continuous improvement.

To perform a good deadlift follow these steps:

Place your midfeet under the bar
Grip the bar in a mixed or hook grip
Lower yourself to the bar
Brace
Turn your elbows in as if you squeezed lemons in your armpits
Be patient off the floor, make the bar bend
Initiate the pull by pushing the floor away from you
Pull the bar up and towards you
Pop your hips forward to lock out
Lockout and set the bar down

Rinse and repeat. One of the major debates around the deadlift is to keep your back straight. I find this queue to be suboptimal and so do some other coaches. Most people can not really do anything actively about it. Turning the elbows in and building maximum tension leads to a straight back and can be influenced.

The two sticking points for the deadlift are off the ground and at lockout. If you can’t lift the weight off the ground you are either not strong enough or failed to build enough tension. If you fail at lockout it is usually a result of poor technique or lack of aggressiveness. The weakest link in the deadlift is your grip. If you have to hold on to 150kg+ for too long it will fail.

The biggest advantages of the deadlift are its capabilities to develop raw strength and satisfy primal needs. A good deadlift always makes me smile.

The biggest disadvantages of the deadlift are that they are very taxing on your lower back and nervous system. They are not really suitable for high rep work.

Squat

The squat, whether with or without a barbell, usually builds the backbone of a well structured strength program. Greg Everett teaches the barbell back squat first in his book Olympic weightlifting. Compared to the bench press and deadlift the squat has the most complex movement pattern. This is also why many beginners treat the squat with respect and rather do leg presses. Apart from the barbell back squat there are many variations:

Leg press
Bulgarian split squat
Squats with chains
Squats with bands
Safety bar squats
Paused squats
Box squats
Pin squats
Ass to grass squats
Half squats
Belted squats
Squats in a squat suit
Goblet squats

The permutations are endless. The squat mainly trains your quads, glutes, hamstrings, and abs. Compared to the deadlift it works the front of the body more and does more for your core as you have to stabilize more.

To do a good squat follow these steps:

Set up the j cups at a height where you can pop the barbell out by pushing your hips forward
Setup the safety pins in the rack so that you can squat to depth without touching them and also being able to exit a failed lift safely
Get your warm up done with aggression and tension. Lift the lightweights as if they are heavy so that the heavyweights move as if they were light
Grip the bar with your hands as close as comfortable to your back. Narrow is better for back squats as long as your elbow and arm don’t pop at the joint
Wrap your thumbs around the bar.
Squeeze the bar as hard as you can and keep that tension
Get aggressively under the bar
Wedge yourself under the bar. The bar should have no wiggle room on your back.
Brace and pop your hips forward to unrack the bar
Walk three steps backwards
Breathe all the air you can out
Breathe into your belly and brace. Push your core muscles out in all directions. You want to form a cylinder
At the same time pull the bar towards as if you were to bend it like a horseshoe
At maximum tension break at the knees to descend
Descend as quick and controlled as you can
Use the rebound at the bottom
Push your back into the bar
Push your feet I to the ground
Squeeze your glutes
Pop your hips to finish

Rinse and repeat. There are a couple of discussions around d the barbell squat and how it should be performed. The main points of discussion are:

Squat depth
Low bar or high bar
Speed of descend

Squat depth is probably the most debated point about the squat. What is the lower back discussion for the deadlift is the squat depth debate for the squat. The definitive answer from my point is this:

beginners squat as deep as their mobility allows
Powerlifters squat as deep as they must and no inch deeper
Weightlifters squat as deep as quick as they can
Bodybuilders squat as deep as they can as slow and often as they can

And everything else is just a heap of bullshit, ego, and brotalk.

Beginners usually lack the mobility to securely perform a very deep squat. What the internet considers as a half or quarter squat might be as low as they can go. Here the focus is to stretch out the bar path to the point that all leg muscles are activated in the barbell squat. This way you get the most benefits for building mass out of the squat. Yoga for hip mobility helped me a ton for this. Took me two years though to see considerable results.

Powerlifters should squat as deep as they must to get their lifts white lighted in competition. Depending on the Federation/association you compete in that might be an inch higher or lower. It might be a good idea to go an inch deeper than competition standard in training. Anything that goes beyond that adds no value and should be discarded. The aim is to keep a very heavy weight under full control out all stages.

The physics of Olympic weightlifting dictate that the best way to lift a heavy weight is to get your body beneath it as fast as you possibly can. So it is a good idea for weightlifters to develop the skill of descending as fast as they possibly can to as deep as they possibly can to catch a heavy weight. That is a very different back squat pattern than for powerlifting. This emphasis speed and depth of the descent and not control during the lift. That’s why you don’t see weightlifters deadlifting or squatting 1000 pounds. Momentum is their friend while it is the sworn enemy of anyone who does heavy squats or deadlifts.

Bodybuilders can also squat and here the emphasis is on time under tension and getting the maximum pump. For this, you might want to go for higher repetitions, lower weights, slow movement, and high reps. Again a completely different style for the same lift.

Another point in the squat is bar placement on the back. Generally accepted gospel is that high bar squats are more suitable for weightlifters while low bar squats are more geared towards powerlifters.

High bar squats are more suited to get deep fast at the expense of control. They are. Ore quad heavy and get less power from the lower back. Low bar squats get a bit more power from the lower back and less from the quads. They provide more stability at the expense of speed.

If you want to get to an expert level of squatting train both with a plan and purpose. As a beginner focus on the spot on your back which you find most comfortable for getting maximum tightness.

The last point is the speed of descending. Again general gospel is that weightlifters should focus on speed while powerlifters focus more on control. The speed of descending is also highly tied to your hip structure. Some people just seem to be build to bomb into the hole and use the reflex to get the weight back up. Others just have to grind it out.

The biggest advantages of the barbell back squat are its carryover too many other exercises and that it is probably the single best exercise in the gym to get strong legs.

The biggest disadvantages of the back squat are its complexity and long learning curve. Most modern bodies just can’t do it right without years of training.

Should you deadlift or squat for mass

The simple answer is that you should do both if you want to maximize your muscle gains.

The deadlift will take better care of your lower back and hamstrings while the squat will stimulate your quads and glutes more.

You are actually asking the wrong question here. The focus should be on how you execute the deadlift and squat for the best mass results. The answer is to go to rep ranges between 8 - 12 per set while maintaining maximum tension for each rep. The back squat is better suited to this kind of training than the deadlift. Try trap bar deadlifts instead of conventional barbell deadlifts if your main goal is mass.