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The Romanian Deadlift is a traditional barbell lift that establishes the strength of the posterior chain muscles, such as the gluteus maximus, adductors, erector spinae, and hamstrings. When performed correctly, it is an effective exercise that strengthens both the core and the lower body with one exercise.<br><br>
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What Is a Romanian Deadlift (RDL)? • The Romanian Deadlift is a traditional barbell lift that establishes the strength of the posterior chain muscles, such as the gluteus maximus, adductors, erector spinae, and hamstrings. When performed correctly, it is an effective exercise that strengthens both the core and the lower body with one exercise.
Romanian Deadlift Muscles Worked • Hamstrings. • Erector Spinae (Lower Back). • Middle and Upper Back. • Glutes. • Forearms. • Trapezius.
How to Do Romanian Deadlift: Step-by-Step Guide • With a pronated (palm-down) grip hold the barbell tightly with your hands apart approximately at your shoulder-width. Keep a slight bend in your knees, while keeping your feet apart at hip width, and let the bar rest along the front of your thighs. You can also use dumbbells instead of a barbell; all you have to do is to adjust the directions to reflect the holding of one dumbbell in one hand. • Raise your chest and pull your shoulder blades down towards the back pockets to keep your spine extended before pushing your tailbone to the posterior part to hinge at your hips. Keep your chin tucked into your neck as if you were holding an egg. This will enable the cervical spine to maintain a safe position during the activity.
Let the weight be lowered towards the ground while retaining the length of the spine. Do not round your back or extend your knees when lowering the weight. • Lower the weight until you feel the tension in the back of your thighs—probably when the bar gets around to the height of your knees or, if you have more flexibility in your hamstrings, around the mid-shin. Look towards the floor, as looking in a mirror can generate strain on the cervical spine. If necessary, move away from the mirror so that you can focus on the exercise and get Romanian deadlift form right without messing up.
Push both heels to the ground, press your hips forward and pull back on your knees while retaining the long spine to return to the standing position. Let the barbell return to the front of your thighs. Pulling back on your knees will trigger distal attachments of your hamstring and adductor muscles, which, as a result, will help to extend the knee when your foot is in a closed-chain position. • Keep your spine long, and the knees slightly bent throughout the exercise to get the Romanian deadlift technique right.
For maximum performance, use a squat rack to rest the barbell at thigh to waist height when beginning, as opposed to attempting to lift the weight up off the ground. Starting with the weight at the correct height can help you to start with a decent starting position.
Romanian Deadlift Benefits • Enhanced Pulling Strength: Enhanced pulling strength is one of the benefits of this exercise. A lot of power and strength athletes perform heavier RDLs instead of traditional deadlifts to increase back, glute, and hamstring strength while not restricting loading to the lower back because of lower loading potentials and increased glute and hamstring isolation.
Increased Athletic Performance: • You can increase your athletic performance with RDLs. It works the posterior chain, which is significant for incremented power application, overall leg strength, and running performance.
More Hamstring Mass: RDL works the hamstrings that help to increase the muscle mass (hypertrophy). Enhanced hamstring hypertrophy can result in increased muscle size, sports performance, power application, and strength.
Romanian Deadlift Variations • Kettlebell Romanian Deadlift: • Kettlebell RDL is an amazing deadlift variation for beginners. Plus, it is super easy for people who do not have a lot of gym equipment. Here’s how you can do this exercise: • Stand with your feet apart at hip-width, and your knees slightly bent. Grasp your kettlebell by its handle with both hands in the front of your thighs.
Hinge at your hips, hunching slightly to your knees. Push your hips back and keep your back completely flat. • Your torso is supposed to be almost parallel to the ground. Touch the bottom of the kettlebell to the ground. • Keep your core taut, push your heels to stand upright. Hold your kettlebell close to the body as you pull it
Take a break at the top and squeeze your hips. This will be 1 rep.
Single Leg Romanian Deadlift: While you lift lighter loads in a single-leg deadlift as compared to a traditional one, a single leg deadlift challenges your muscles in totally different ways. For one, the core and hip muscles have to really fire themselves to keep the body stable and maintain balance on a single leg. When performing single-leg RDLs, using two dumbbells can be easier for your balance instead of using one or simply use the . Here’s how to nail it like a pro.
Stand with your feet together, and hold a dumbbell/barbell in each hand in front of your legs. This will be your starting position. • Move your weight to your right leg, and whilst maintaining a slight curve in your right knee, lift your left leg straight behind your body, and bend your hips to keep your torso parallel to the ground, and lower the weight to the ground. • Keep your back completely flat. When you get to the bottom of the exercise, make sure that your torso and left leg are almost parallel to the ground, with the weight a few inches above the ground.
Tips for Perfecting a Romanian Deadlift • Signalling yourself to 'feel the floor' with your feet: You want to make sure that your body weight is distributed on your heels, so that you can feel balanced while your hips push behind you. • Squeezing your glutes hard when going up: At the bottom of the range, your hips are going to be quite far behind you, and you will have to engage your glutes to elevate your hips back to the position where you started.
Romanian Deadlift Alternatives • You may find it difficult to incorporate such an awesome exercise into your training program sometimes. This can be because of a lack of control, flexibility limitations, or poor hinging mechanics. But you can do some alternative exercises to elicit the same benefits. We have compiled a list of all the important alternatives that you can try:
Good Mornings. • Barbell Hip Thrust. • Weighted 45-Degree Back Extension. • Floor-Lying Glute Ham Raise. • Walking Lunge. • Seated Hamstring Curls. • Back Extensions/Glute Hamstring Developers. • Standing Cable Pull Through.
Keep your core taut, push through your right heel to stand upright and pull the weight to your starting position. Bring your left leg back down to meet your right leg, but try to keep most of the weight in your right foot when doing so. • Stop there and squeeze your hips. This will be 1 rep.
