The Squat vs. the Hip Hinge: What’s the Difference?
The squat and the hinge are two fundamental lower-body movement patterns that can help build lower-body strength and power, improve athletic performance, and prevent injuries in sport and everyday life . Learning them also gives you many more options in the weight room, since the squat and hinge are the basis for most other lower body exercises.
They also happen to be two of the more difficult exercises to learn, and many new lifters have a hard time differentiating the two. And while most people can at least conceptualize a squat (even if they can’t really execute one), the hinge is a little less intuitive and harder to grasp.
One way to generalize the two is:
The squat = knee dominant
The hinge = hip dominant
The squat primarily works the glutes and quads, involves a large amount of bend at the knee, and is a more vertical movement (think butt moving down towards the floor).
The hip hinge works the glutes and hamstrings, has most of the movement occurring at the hip and very little at the knee, and is a more horizontal movement (think butt moving back towards the wall).
You can imagine the squat and hinge being placed on opposite ends of a movement spectrum. On one end are goblet and front squats with a large amount of knee bend. On the other are pure hinge movements, like good mornings and stiff leg deadlifts, which have very little knee bend.
There are many exercises though that have aspects of both and fall somewhere in the middle of the squat-hinge spectrum. The hex bar deadlift, for example, is a hybrid of the two movements. Other exercises such as low bar barbell back squats and sumo and conventional deadlifts tend to fall somewhere closer to the middle as well.
If the goal is to simply move the most amount of weight, then lower body moments that are in the middle of this squat-hinge spectrum are the safest and most effective way to do so. For example, a lifter will be able to hex bar deadlift considerably more than they can stiff leg deadlift or good morning. This is due to greater stability, muscle recruitment, and the position of the load in relation to your center of mass.