I always find it funny how my fiancé constantly asks me how many times I could watch, read, and write something about squats, bench, and deadlifts. 

To answer her question, it's more than likely a very unhealthy amount. 

This brings us to today's article topic—helping athletes and coaches program the correct movements for specific weaknesses in squats or deadlifts. 

I break them down into tiers: the main movement tier followed by tiers 1-4 to support the main movement. What movements are in each tier is highly dependent on the athlete's particular weakness. 

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For the sake of this article not being longer than it will already be in each movement section, we will discuss the main movement tier along with Tier 1 and Tier 2. 

Realize, Tier 3 and 4 never change. Tier 3 is always "ultra" high reps 30-100 reps to add blood flow and recovery of the muscles we just damaged. Tier 4 is always abdominal work. I'm partial to high rep standing abs or stabilizing exercises like planks, dead bugs, and Pallof presses for time. These are non-negotiables everyone can benefit from. Each of the following sections will break down the most common movements. 

Before jumping into the meat and potatoes, I have to preface this with a few prerequisites like breathing, bracing, rooting the ground, position, technique, and psyche. As Chris Duffin says, the first place to focus is the abdominals (correct intra-abdominal pressure), and the second place is the feet (rooting and grabbing the ground correctly). By correcting these two major areas, you'll fix most problems a lifter will have in their lift. Yes, even high-level lifters need to have refreshers in these from time to time. After that, make sure your head is in the game. If you think, even for a second, you don't have the lift, you've already lost. Get into your zone before the lift and use mental imagery of you completing the lift leading up to it.     

I have to pay homage to those giant shoulders you and I both stand on. These movement tiers have been organized and created with my own experience and those of Christian Anto, Brandon Smitley, Brian Carroll, Louie Simmons, and more.

Movement Tier Breakdown

Main Movement Tier: 

  • Priority compound movement of the day, variation to squat, bench, and deadlift

Tier 1 Movement: 

  • Triphasic back down (refer to Christian Anto's page for more on this) on back-down sets of the main movement or your next prioritized compound movement

Tier 2 Movement: 

  • Normally going to be a single joint or unilateral non-compound movement

Tier 3 Movement: 

  • Ultra high-rep movements, 30-100 reps per set

Tier 4 Movement: 

  • The often overlooked and underutilized abdominal training

Now that we have a definition of each of the tiers, we can better understand how to organize our training, whether it's max effort, dynamic effort, or sub-maximal day.

Let's take a look at the following sections and utilize the tier approach: 

  • Section 1: Failing in the Hole
  • Section 2: Knee Caving
  • Section 3: Upper Back Rounding
  • Section 4: Stripper Squat or the Good Morning Squat
  • Section 5: Off the floor Weakness in the Deadlift
  • Section 6: Lockout Weakness in the Deadlift

Section 1: Failing in the Hole of the Bottom of the Squat

Like most raw squatters, getting just below parallel and halfway up is the most common place to fail. No one likes getting stapled to the floor—it's defeating and pretty much ensures you're not ready for that weight. Make intelligent jumps in weight. If it's 50 pounds more than you can handle, well, there's your reason for failing. This logic conveniently applies to every section of this article.

Main Movement Tier: 

Tier 1 Movements:

  • Triphasic implementation
  • Back-off sets
  • GHD, Reverse Hyper®, or Good Mornings

Tier 2 Movements:

  • Bulgarian Split Squats, Single-Leg Glute Bridge, Reverse Lunge, Walking Lunges, Side Lunges, Single-Leg Leg press, SL Leg curls

Sample Training Session:

Warm-up:

  • Diaphragmatic Breathing and RPR
  • Leg Curls and Glute Bridge 2x20

Main Movement:

  • SSB Low Box Squat 1RM (also great for building the start of the deadlift conventional deadlift)

Tier 1:

  • SSB Low Box Squat 3x5x65% w/5-sec pause of today's 1RM

Tier 2:

  • Bulgarian Split Squats 3-4 x 12-15 w/ ea leg 

Tier 3:

  • Reverse Hyper® 3-4 x 30+

Tier 4:

  • Front Plank 3-4 x 60 secs

Depending on your current strength level, you can be as basic or crazy as you like. Just stay within the guidelines and use it how it's intended.

Section 2: Knee Cave

The dreaded knee cave...

Alright, I need to make a point clear here, we're not talking when the knees perform a small knee valgus to help recruit the inner hips. We're talking about someone doing the unintentional stanky leg. Even though I've already stated this, I feel obligated to do so again. 

If your intraabdominal pressure and rooting are awful, this will only show greater! Often, when the rooting isn't up to par and the big toe isn't connected and grabbing the ground. The foot collapses, causing the knee to cave, thus giving the glutes and hips a bad rap. What I'm saying here is the feet and abs are important!

Main Movement:

  • Wide Stance Squat, Wide Stance Box Squat, Wide Stance Pauses, Sumo Deadlift, Sumo Chair Deadlifts
  • All with or without bands, chains, or weight releasers
  • Using any bar, SS Yoke Bar, Cambered Bar, Buffalo Bar, Spider, Hook, Deadlift Bar, Straight Bar

Tier 1 Movement:

Tier 2 Movement:

  • Hip Abduction Machine, Banded Seated Hip Abduction

Sample Training Session:

Warm-up:

  • Diaphragmatic Breathing and RPR
  • Reverse Hyper® and DB Shrugs 2x20

Main Movement:

  • Wide Stance Box Squat 1RM 

Tier 1 movement:

  • Belt Squat March 3-5 x 15-25

Tier 2 Movement:

  • Hip Abduction Machine 3x20 Superset with Leg Curls 3x20

Tier 3 Movement:

  • Reverse Hyper® 3-5 x 30-50

Tier 4 Movement:

  • Stir the Pot 3-4 x 6-10 ea side

A knee cave is important to fix based on two main reasons. The first reason is injury mitigation. If there's less knee cave, there's less chance of injury. The second reason is power leakage. When the joints aren't continually stacked throughout the movement, we are having loss of transfer of power through the joints. Let's get the glutes and hips extremely strong.

Section 3: Upper Back Rounding

I see this happen quite frequently. Like I prefaced before, breathing, bracing, rooting, correct stacking of the joints, etc., all come into play. If it's not the issue and you have the upper back of an 11-year-old choir girl, let's build it HARD AF. Consequently, this will carry over to every lift plus make you look yolked, so that's pretty cool.

Main Movement:

  • Front Squat, SSB Squat, Spider Squat, Front Squat Box Squat, SSB Box Squat, Spider Bar Box Squat
  • All with or without bands, chains, or weight releasers

Tier 1 Movement:

  • Triphasic Implementation
  • Back-off Sets
  • SSB Upper Back Good Morning
  • SSB Shrug
  • Cambered Bar Good Morning

Tier 2 Movement:

  • DB Shrugs
  • BB Shrugs
  • Chest Supported DB Shrugs
  • Face Pulls
  • Row Variations
  • Lat Pulldown Variations

Sample Training session:

Warm-up:

  • Diaphragmatic Breathing and RPR
  • Reverse Hyper® and DB shrugs 2x20

Main Movement:

  • Front Squat 1RM 

Tier 1 Movement:

  • SSB Upper Back Good Mornings 3-5 x 15-25

Tier 2 Movement:

  • DB Shrugs 3x20 Superset with Leg Curls 3x20

Tier 3 Movement:

  • Seated Banded Hip Abduction 3-5 x 30-50

Tier 4 Movement:

  • Hanging Leg Raise 3-4 x 20

In my opinion, you can implement this upper back training across every training session you do. Be creative and use timed reps, heavy weight with low reps, etc. Like anything else in programming, USE COMMON SENSE.

 Section 4: The Stripper Squat or Good Morning Squat

The name of this section always makes me laugh, so I use it as the title. When I refer to this as the Good Morning Squat, I'm not speaking to the individual with the body leverages where they start in a leaned-over position and finish there. You must finish in the same position you started in. 

Main Movements:

  • Narrow Stance Squat, Low Box Narrow Stance Squat, Front Squat, High Bar Squat, Narrow Stance SSB, Narrow Stance Pause Squat
  • All with or without bands, chains, or weight releasers

Tier 1 movements:

  • Triphasic Back-Down
  • Back-Down Sets
  • Narrow Stance Leg Press
  • Narrow Stance Belt Squat
  • Backward Sled Drag

Tier 2 movements:

  • Single-Leg Step-Ups
  • Front Rack Walking Lunges
  • Heels Elevated Goblet Squat

Sample training session:

Warm-up:

  • Diaphragmatic Breathing and RPR
  • Glute Bridges and Reverse Hyper® 2x20

Main Movement:

  • Narrow Stance SSB 1RM

Tier 1 Movement:

  • Narrow Stance Belt Squat 3-5 x 5-10

Tier 2 Movement:

  • DB Front Rack Walking Lunges 2x10 yards each way

Tier 3 Movement:

  • Leg Curls 3x30

Tier 4 Movement:

I know what you're thinking. What's up with all of this narrow stance and quad-focused work when we're conjugate people? Yes, the body is super intelligent. It shifts muscular focus to finish the lift when its appropriate muscular group can't. We're making the theory here that the anterior chain isn't strong enough to help you finish the lift, so what happens when you come up is your hips shoot back to get better use of your quads and low back. I like using a bench example as it seems to be more commonly understood. When pressing, if your elbows (triceps) are not strong enough, the shoulder (delts) will flare because the elbows aren't strong enough to finish the lift. This then forces the shoulders to bear the burden of finishing the lift. For multiple reasons, this isn't optimal so let's make sure we get the weak areas strong.

Section 5: Off the Floor Weakness

When you start a deadlift, are you automatically rounding your upper back before the bar even leaves the ground? I have and do, and it's been one of my personal problems. Don't be like me. Let's get your glutes and hamstrings strong and get your upper back into proper extension. If we start the pull correctly, we can finish as efficiently as possible. 

Main Movements:

  • 1- to 2-in Deficit, Stiff Leg, Stiff Leg Deficit, Pin-1 Rack Pull, 2-in Block Pull, Suspended Good Morning from deadlift height
  • All with or without bands or chains
  • Specialty bars, Fat Bar, Deadlift Bar, Power Bar, and for the Good Mornings use a Cambered Bar, SSB Bar, Hook Bar, Buffalo Bar

Tier 1 Movements:

  • Triphasic Implementation
  • Back-off Sets
  • All Good Morning Variations
  • Chair Deadlifts
  • Eccentric-focused Deadlifts

Tier 2 Movements:

  • Back Extension
  • GHD
  • Reverse Hyper®
  • Pull Throughs 
  • Planks
  • Dead Bugs
  • Modified Curl-ups
  • Pallof Press

Sample Training session:

Warm-up:

  • Diaphragmatic Breathing and RPR
  • Standing Abs and Reverse Hyper® 2x20

Main Movement:

  • 1-in Deficit Deadlift vs. short red bands 1RM

Tier 1 Movement:

  • 1-in Deficit Deadlift vs. short red bands 3x5x65% w/ 5-sec eccentric

Tier 2 Movement:

  • GHD 3x8-15

Tier 3 Movement:

  • 1-Arm Row 3x15-20

Tier 4 Movement:

  • Ab Rollouts 3x fail

With these exercises, less is more. Don't overhaul and kill yourself. Plug these into your program and play around with them to see which is most effective. Deficit deadlifts may seem weird in this category, but one to two inches are often enough for someone to get in perfect position. Spend some time here and strengthen this position. Over time, pull from the ground or a deficit. When you have some speed and confidence off the ground and can use that speed to lockout, we can get bigger and bigger deadlifts and bigger totals!

Section 6: Lock Out

There is probably nothing more frustrating than getting within a couple of inches of locking out a PR, and then you got nothing left in the tank. Like everything else, let's strengthen the correct musculature to be able to get you in the best position to deadlift the most amount of weight.

Main Movements: 

  • 1- to 3-in Deadlift Deficit, 1- to 4-in Block Pull, Opposite Stance Training, Pin 1-3 Rack Pull, Reverse Band Deadlift
  • With or without bands or chains
  • Specialty Bar, Fat Bar, Deadlift Bar, Straight Power Bar

Tier 1 Movements:

  • Triphasic Implementation
  • Back-off Sets
  • Good Morning Variations
  • RDLs
  • Glute Bridges
  • High Box Wide Stance 

Tier 2 Movements:

  • Back Extension
  • GHD
  • Reverse Hyper®
  • Pull Throughs 
  • Planks
  • Dead Bugs
  • Modified Curl-ups
  • Pallof Press 

Sample training session:

Warm-up:

  • Diaphragmatic Breathing and RPR
  • Front Planks 2x60 secs and Reverse Hyper® 2x20

Main Movement:

  • 2-in Block Pull vs. (3) chains per side 1RM

Tier 1 Movement:

  • SSB Wide Stance Good Morning 3-4x8

Tier 2 Movement:

  • Chest Supported DB Row Off Back Extention 3-5 x 8-12

Tier 3 Movement:

  • Cable Pull Through superset with Low Back Extension 3-4 x 15-20

Tier 4 Movement:

  • Standing Abs 3-5 x 50

I need to stress that good mornings will build your deadlift and squat, but I've noticed a huge carryover to my conventional deadlift. I hate them to be honest. My hinge has never been the strongest and is easily the most awkward. Once I implemented sets of 8s, 5s, and 3s, and boom, my conventional and sumo pull went up. Do them correctly: BREATH, BRACE, and ROOT THE GROUND. I'll say it until the cows come home.

I want you to take this and create your tiers along with trial and error. This wall takes time, but it's a great feeling once you figure out your builders, what works for you, and how best to organize it. Make sure you're diligently focusing on the basics along with getting stronger than an OX. Every set and rep breathe correctly, brace the best you can, and root so hard you start ripping the carpet under your feet. These little nuances that seem to make no difference from rep to rep will year to year—we all see it time and time again. Master the fundamentals and get crazy. Just because you conjugate doesn't give you the card to reverse band rack pull with four chains aside just because you can. 

As always, reach out to me via email at fariaathletics@gmail.com or on Instagram @Bristol_County_Barbell_club. 

Chad Faria is a competitive powerlifter (raw with wraps) from New Bedford, Massachusetts. He owns Bristol County Barbell club—a one-car garage and a 450-square-foot carport. Chad is a Westside Special Strengths Coach, RPR Level 1 Practitioner, PN1 Coach, and ISSA Master Certified Personal Trainer. Aside from his son, fiancé, and livelihood, his barbell club is one of the biggest priorities in his life. Chad's goal is to help whoever is serious about becoming the most dangerous and strongest version of themselves.