How to Do It
- Start standing tall holding the bar at hip height, feet hip-width apart.
- Push your hips back while keeping a soft bend in your knees, letting the bar slide down your thighs.
- Keep your back flat and chest up as you lower the bar, stopping once you feel a strong hamstring stretch, usually around mid-shin.
- Reverse the movement by driving your hips forward, squeezing your glutes and hamstrings to stand back up.
- Keep the bar close to your legs throughout, rather than letting it drift forward.
Common Mistakes
- Bending the knees too much, turning the exercise into a stiff-leg squat that misses the hamstring stretch.
- Rounding the back to reach further down instead of stopping at your actual hamstring flexibility limit.
- Letting the bar drift away from the legs, which reduces the stretch and adds unnecessary lower back stress.
- Going too heavy too soon before the hip hinge pattern is grooved, since form breaks down fast under load.
The Romanian deadlift is the best exercise for building hamstring and glute strength through a hip hinge pattern, without the full-range fatigue cost of a conventional deadlift. It’s a staple accessory in almost every well-built leg day workout.
Depth is individual. Stop lowering the bar the moment your lower back wants to round; that’s your current flexibility limit. For targeted glute work alongside the RDL, pair it with the hip thrust. You can track your baseline strength for heavy compound pulls using our one-rep max calculator.
The RDL pairs naturally with the barbell back squat on a leg day: the squat is knee-dominant, the RDL is hip-dominant, and together they train the full range your legs need.
Romanian Deadlift vs Deadlift
The two movements share a bar and a hip hinge, but they load your body differently. A conventional deadlift resets from the floor every rep, pulling through a longer range with meaningfully more quad and grip demand. A Romanian deadlift starts standing and only lowers to around mid-shin, keeping constant tension on the hamstrings and glutes without the full-range fatigue cost of a floor pull.
| Romanian Deadlift | Conventional Deadlift | |
|---|---|---|
| Range of motion | Hip height to mid-shin | Floor to lockout |
| Primary emphasis | Hamstrings, glutes | Hamstrings, glutes, quads, back |
| Fatigue cost | Lower | Higher |
| Best for | Hamstring hypertrophy, hip hinge technique | Total-body strength, max pulling power |
| Skill floor | Intermediate | Intermediate to advanced |
If you only have time for one, the conventional deadlift trains more muscle mass per rep. If your goal is hamstring size or you already deadlift heavy elsewhere in your program, the RDL is the better accessory choice.
Romanian Deadlift Alternatives
- Conventional deadlift: more total-body loading, less isolated hamstring tension.
- Hip thrust: trades the hamstring stretch for a stronger glute-lockout squeeze; a good complement rather than a straight swap.
- Single-leg RDL: the same hip hinge pattern with a lighter load and an added balance and core demand, useful if lower back fatigue is limiting your barbell RDL volume.[1][2]
- Good morning: a barbell-on-back variation of the same hip hinge, useful for lifters who want to keep the bar off the floor entirely.
Muscles Worked by the Romanian Deadlift
- Primary: hamstrings, glutes
- Secondary: lower back (erector spinae), lats (isometrically, to keep the bar close)
- Stabilizers: core, upper back, grip
Alternatives
- Hip Thrust: A glute-focused substitute when hamstring stretch loading is not desired.
Programs Using This Exercise
References
- Anaerobic and Muscle Endurance Development: Lifting Guidelines. National Strength and Conditioning Association (2017)Back to claim
- American College of Sports Medicine Position Stand. Resistance Training Prescription for Muscle Function, Hypertrophy, and Physical Performance in Healthy Adults: An Overview of Reviews. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (2026)Back to claim
- Updating ACSM's Recommendations for Exercise Preparticipation Health Screening. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (2015)
- The effects of the conventional deadlift and Romanian deadlift on muscle activation and joint angles at a submaximal intensity (2026)Back to claim
See our exercise methodology for how this evidence is applied and its limits.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What's the difference between a deadlift and a Romanian deadlift?
- A conventional deadlift starts each rep from the floor, resetting the bar between reps, and trains total-body pulling strength with more quad involvement. A Romanian deadlift starts standing and lowers the bar only to around mid-shin before reversing, keeping tension on the hamstrings and glutes throughout without the full range fatigue of a floor pull.
- How to correctly do Romanian deadlifts?
- To correctly do a Romanian deadlift (RDL), start standing tall holding the bar at hip height, then push your hips back with a soft knee bend, letting the bar slide down your thighs while your back stays flat. Stop once you feel a strong hamstring stretch, usually around mid-shin, then drive your hips forward to stand back up.
- What are Romanian deadlifts good for?
- Romanian deadlifts are good for building hamstring and glute strength through a hip hinge pattern, without the full-range fatigue cost of a conventional deadlift. They are a staple accessory in most leg day programs and also reinforce the hip hinge technique that carries over to conventional deadlifts and other hinge-based movements.
- How do I know if I'm doing Romanian deadlifts correctly?
- You are doing Romanian deadlifts correctly if your back stays flat throughout the descent, the bar stays close to your legs rather than drifting forward, and you stop lowering the moment your lower back wants to round. If you feel the movement mostly in your lower back instead of your hamstrings, you are likely bending your knees too much.
- Romanian deadlift vs deadlift: which one should I do?
- Do both if you can, since they train different things. The conventional deadlift starts from the floor and builds total-body pulling strength with more quad involvement, while the Romanian deadlift starts standing and stays under tension through a shorter, hip-dominant range that isolates the hamstrings and glutes. Most programs use the conventional deadlift as the main lift and the RDL as an accessory.
- Why is RDL harder than deadlift?
- A Romanian deadlift can feel harder than a conventional deadlift at the same weight because the hamstrings stay under constant, stretched tension for the entire set instead of resetting on the floor between reps. There is no dead stop to break momentum, so the muscles never get a moment of rest until the set ends, which fatigues them faster than a floor-reset pull.