Romanian deadlift: how to do it and how much you should lift

Muscles the Romanian deadlift works

The Romanian deadlift works the back of your hips and thighs. The hamstrings and the glutes do the lifting, while your lower back muscles (the spinal erectors) hold your spine still. Your forearms hold the bar, and your upper back and traps keep your shoulders set.

The hamstrings take a big share. In a study of 10 men and 10 women, the RDL loaded 2 hamstring muscles hardest on the way down. It beat 6 other exercises and running at any speed. In the outer hamstring, the peak was 1.6 times body weight, against 1.0 in a flat-out sprint. Those forces come from a computer model, not a direct measure.

The glutes work hard too. In 8 trained men lifting their one-rep max, glute activity in the RDL did not differ significantly from the hip thrust.

Studies that measure electrical activity with sensors on the skin (EMG) show which muscles fire, not which ones grow. Two training studies measured growth:

• In 6 weeks, 32 young adults, 15 of them women, trained either the RDL or the Nordic curl, a kneeling exercise that bends the knee. The hamstrings grew about 10% in cross-section, with no difference between the groups.
• In 33 untrained women over 10 weeks, leg presses and stiff-leg deadlifts grew glute thickness by 6.0%.

How to do a Romanian deadlift

1. Set the bar in a rack at about mid-thigh height. Without a rack, deadlift the bar up from the floor for your first rep.
2. Stand with your feet about hip width apart. Grip the bar just outside your thighs, palms facing you.
3. Lift the bar out of the rack and take a step or 2 back. Stand tall, then let your knees bend a little.
4. Take a breath into your belly and brace. Pull your shoulders back and down, so the bar hangs close to your thighs.
5. Push your hips back towards the wall behind you, and let your torso tip forward. The bend in your knees stays about the same.
6. Slide the bar down your thighs and past your knees, keeping it in contact with your legs. Your back stays flat from your hips to your head.
7. Stop when your hips stop moving back or your lower back starts to round. For many people that is around the middle of the shin.
8. Drive your hips forward to stand back up. Squeeze your glutes at the top without leaning back, breathe out, then brace again.

The bar does not have to touch the floor. Every rep starts and ends standing, and that is what makes it an RDL.

Romanian deadlift, stiff-leg deadlift or deadlift?

All 3 lifts bend at the hips. They differ in where the bar starts, how much your knees bend and how far it goes down.

What the studies found:

• RDL against the deadlift: in 21 trained men at the same weight, the deadlift worked the front of the thigh (rectus femoris) over twice as hard. Its activity was 58.6% of peak against 25.3% in the RDL. Glute activity was a little higher in the deadlift, 51.5% against 46.9%. Hamstring activity was about the same.
• RDL against the stiff-leg deadlift: in 10 competitive bodybuilders at 80% of their max, the RDL worked the inner hamstring (semitendinosus) harder. The stiff-leg deadlift worked the glutes harder.
• What grows: in a 9-week study of 36 untrained people, the stiff-leg deadlift group grew its hamstrings by 7.0%, most of all the semimembranosus, by 11.2%. The Nordic curl group grew mostly the semitendinosus, by 24.3%.

The names get mixed up, in gyms and in studies. Coaches often teach the RDL with about 15 degrees of knee bend. In the 21-man study, lifters asked to touch the floor bent their knees about 34 degrees in the RDL and 85 in the deadlift. In the bodybuilder study, both the RDL and the stiff-leg deadlift started each rep from the floor.

Where the advice differs

Most Romanian deadlift technique is coaching habit, not tested in studies. Where coaches disagree, the right answer depends on your hamstrings, your build and your goal.

Common mistakes and how to fix them

Sets, reps and rest for the Romanian deadlift

There is no single right number. The table is a starting point built on the research on lifting in general. None of these studies tested the RDL on its own.

What the studies show:

• Heavy weights build more strength. Muscle grows about as well with light or heavy weights, if the sets go close to failure.
• More weekly sets bring more muscle, up to a point. Strength gains level off sooner.
• With the same weekly sets, training a muscle more often does not add size. Two RDL days a week just make the sets easier to fit in.
• You do not need to reach failure. On the RDL, the last grinding reps are where your back rounds, so stop a rep or 2 short.
• Rest longer before heavy sets. Rests of 3 minutes built more strength and muscle than 1 minute in trained men.

For longer answers, read how many sets and reps build muscle and how long to rest between sets.

Warm-up sets before a heavy Romanian deadlift

Warm up with the bar, then climb towards your working weight in a few short sets. Type your working set below, and the calculator gives you the warm-up sets and the plates for each side. The RDL starts standing, so take each set from a rack at mid-thigh height. Light sets with small plates then never start from the floor.

The calculator uses a common ramp: the empty bar for 10, then about 40% of the working weight for 5, 60% for 3 and 80% for 2. Before sets of 5 or fewer reps, or a working weight of 100 kg (225 lb) or more, it adds 90% for 1. Before sets of 8 or more reps, it keeps only the 40% and 80% sets. For a working weight under 40 kg (90 lb), it gives one set at 70% for 3. It rounds each weight down to what your plates can make, and skips a set that would sit within 5 kg (10 lb) of the one before.

If the 20 kg bar is too heavy to start with, pick the 15 kg bar in the calculator. After squats or deadlifts, 2 lighter sets at about 60% and 80% are usually enough.

No study has tested a warm-up for the RDL. In 40 trained men, a warm-up set at 80% of the working weight gave faster squat sets than a warm-up at 40%. Two other squat studies found that the kind of warm-up made no difference to the reps people did. No study shows that warm-up sets prevent injury.

How much should you Romanian deadlift?

No study sets a standard for the Romanian deadlift, and powerlifting meets do not test it. The one large table online comes from what gym app users log.

Strength Level built its table from 1,151,417 logged lifts, of which 359,740 passed its checks for implausible, duplicate or automated entries. Each level is the one-rep max (1RM, the most weight you can lift once) that beats a share of its users:

Rounded, Strength Level puts the intermediate line at 1.5 times body weight for men and 1 times for women. The average logged RDL is 122 kg for men and 68 kg for women. Nothing checks form or depth, so read the table as a rough guide, not a target.

How does it compare with your deadlift? On Strength Level's own tables, the intermediate man at 80 kg deadlifts 155 kg (342 lb) and RDLs 125 kg, about 81% of it. The intermediate woman at 60 kg deadlifts 86 kg (190 lb) and RDLs 67 kg, about 78%. That is one site's data at one level, not a rule. StrengthLog has no RDL table. Its exercise guide says people typically deadlift 15% to 25% more than they RDL, and does not say where that figure comes from.

Trackist scores the Romanian deadlift in its hinge group, against the same lines as the deadlift, so this page leaves its own table out.

Under 18? These tables are for adults, and they set no target for teenagers. For a young lifter, a flat back and slow, steady progress matter more than any number on them.

Find your Romanian deadlift max

You do not need to test a true one-rep max on the RDL, and few people do. Type a set you did, and the calculator estimates your max with 7 formulas. Sets of 10 reps or fewer give the closest estimate. For more detail, open the 1RM calculator.

The Romanian deadlift and your lower back

Your lower back does not bend and straighten in an RDL. It holds your spine still while your hips move, and that is hard work. In 12 men lifting half their max, the muscles beside the lower spine showed more activity than the glutes or the hamstrings.

That is not a reason to avoid the RDL. It is a reason to:

• brace before each rep and keep your back flat from your hips to your head
• stop each rep where your hips stop moving back, before your lower back rounds
• use straps on heavy sets, so your grip does not give out before your hamstrings
• do heavy RDLs before heavy squats or deadlifts tire your back, or use less weight after them

Does a rounded back hurt you? A review of 11 studies found low-quality evidence that a rounder lower back while lifting was not a risk factor for back pain. Neither "rounding is dangerous" nor "rounding is safe" is proven, so keep your back close to flat under heavy weight.

A failed RDL is easy to get out of: the bar is in your hands, so you lower it to the floor and let go.

When the Romanian deadlift hurts

Pain is a reason to change something, not to push through. Diagnosis and treatment belong to a physiotherapist or a doctor.

• Lower back: take weight off, stop at about knee height, and brace before each rep. If it still hurts, switch to a cable pull-through or a back extension for a few weeks. In one study, the pull-through showed less lower back activity than the RDL.
• Deep in the buttock, near the sit bone, where the hamstrings attach: long-lasting pain there is a typical sign of a sore hamstring tendon (proximal hamstring tendinopathy). Stop higher, use less weight and see a physiotherapist. When a 2016 review was written, no study with random groups had tested how to rehabilitate it.
• Back of the thigh: a sudden sharp pain during a set needs a physiotherapist's check before you load the leg again.
• A sudden sharp pain in your lower back that runs down a leg, or numbness or weakness in a leg, needs a doctor soon.

For lasting pain, read what to do when a lift hurts.

Romanian deadlift variations and alternatives

In Trackist's exercise library, the Romanian deadlift sits in one group with 11 other hip-hinge movements: the dumbbell Romanian deadlift, the single-leg Romanian deadlift, the deadlift, the sumo deadlift, the trap bar deadlift, the deficit deadlift, the stiff-leg deadlift, the dumbbell deadlift, the good morning, the cable pull-through and the weighted back extension. The app's Romanian deadlift page lists them as similar movements. When you swap the RDL for one session or for the rest of your plan, the picker puts that group first, then other hamstring exercises, starting with those your equipment and joints allow.

How Trackist runs your Romanian deadlift

Trackist is an AI personal trainer for the gym. It writes your plan, and the Romanian deadlift gets this from the app:

• From your second session of the RDL, Trackist suggests what to try from the last time you logged it. When every set at your top weight reached the top of the rep range, it adds 2.5 kg (5 lb). Inside the range, it keeps the weight and asks for more reps. There is no suggestion in a deload week.
• When you fall short of the reps, it keeps the weight, takes about 5% off or leaves the call to you, depending on how far short you fell and how hard the sets felt.
• From your second session, it logs a personal record when you beat your heaviest weight, your most reps at a weight or your best estimated max.
• The exercise page shows 4 form cues, the muscles worked and the joints the RDL loads: the lower back and the hips. From your second session, it adds a chart of your estimated one-rep max.
• When your lower back hurts on the RDL, you report it and rate it from 1 to 5. Trackist swaps it for a hip-hinge movement that leaves the lower back out, such as the cable pull-through if your gym has a cable machine. Your profile remembers that bending under load hurts, so later plans leave out deadlifts, good mornings, sit-ups and other movements that bend your back, while squats stay.
• When your hip hurts, Trackist swaps the RDL for another hamstring exercise, such as a leg curl. Later plans leave out hip hinges, while squats stay.
• Your RDL counts towards your Strength Score in the hip-hinge group, against the deadlift's lines, adjusted for your age. The group takes your best estimated max from the past 90 days, so if you also deadlift, your deadlift usually sets it.