Romanian Deadlift.
The Romanian deadlift is a hip hinge movement that trains the hamstrings and glutes through a loaded stretch. Starting at hip height with a slight knee bend kept fixed throughout, the hips push back and the torso descends until the bar reaches mid-shin, then the hips drive forward to stand.
Step by step.
Stand holding the bar at hip height with a double overhand grip, hands just outside your thighs and feet about hip width apart. Use straps on heavier sets so grip does not quit before the hamstrings do.
Set a slight bend in the knees and lock that angle in place. The shins stay vertical and the knee bend does not change for the rest of the rep.
Take a deep breath, brace your abs, and pull your shoulders down to engage the lats so the bar stays pinned close to your legs.
Push your hips straight back and let the torso tip forward as a unit. The bar should slide down along your thighs and shins, never drifting out in front of you.
Lower until you feel a strong stretch in the hamstrings, usually somewhere around the middle of your shins. The moment your lower back starts to round, you have gone as deep as today allows, so stop there.
Drive your hips forward and stand tall to finish, squeezing the glutes at the top without leaning back or overarching.
The Romanian deadlift is often called an accessory movement, but that undersells what it actually does. The hamstrings are trained under a heavy loaded stretch from hip-height all the way to mid-shin. That range of motion, combined with the load, is why this exercise builds posterior chain thickness faster than almost any other isolation movement. Done well, it's not an accessory. It's the main event for hamstring development.
The setup point that separates the RDL from a stiff-leg deadlift: slight knee bend, established at the start, maintained throughout. The shins stay vertical the entire time. The bend doesn't increase as you descend and doesn't disappear at the top. It's a fixed angle, not a variable one. A stiff-leg deadlift (nearly locked knees) is a different exercise and puts more stress on the lower back. An RDL with increasing knee bend at the bottom becomes a conventional deadlift. The shins staying vertical is the cue that keeps it an RDL.
The bar travels in a straight line close to the legs, not arcing forward and away from the body. If the bar drifts out in front of the thighs on the way down, it creates a longer moment arm and the lower back takes load it shouldn't. Bar stays in contact or near contact with the legs throughout. This is the same lat-engagement principle as the conventional deadlift: brace the lats to keep the bar close.
Depth is set by hamstring length, not by how far the floor is. The lower back should maintain its natural arch all the way to the bottom. The moment the lower back rounds, you've reached your mobility limit for today. For most people starting out, that's around knee height. Over months of training, the depth increases as hamstring flexibility improves. Don't force a deeper range of motion by rounding the back. Push the load by feel here rather than a fixed number, and let rate of perceived exertion cap the set before the lower back ever starts to round.
Common questions.
The conventional deadlift starts from the floor. The Romanian deadlift starts from standing and the bar stays off the floor; the bottom position is typically mid-shin. In the conventional pull, the knees bend significantly as the bar is set on the floor; in the RDL, the knees stay at a slight, fixed bend throughout. The RDL's range of motion is in the hip hinge. The hamstrings are loaded from a standing position down to a deep stretch and back. It's primarily a hamstring and glute exercise. The conventional pull additionally loads the quads significantly through the initial floor-break portion.
Stop when the lower back starts to round. That's the honest depth limit for your current hamstring flexibility. For most beginners this is somewhere between knee height and mid-shin, lower than they expected. Depth will improve over months of consistent training as the hamstrings adapt. Forcing depth by rounding the lumbar spine is the same problem that causes conventional deadlift injuries: flexion of the lumbar under load concentrates force on the discs. Feel the hamstrings stretching under load, maintain the arch, and stop there.
After squats or as a standalone accessory day, not before. The RDL pre-fatigues the posterior chain and spinal erectors, which are load-bearing in the squat. Doing heavy RDLs before squatting reduces squat performance and, more importantly, reduces the ability to maintain lumbar position under a heavy squat. Standard ordering for lower body days: squats first, then RDLs or leg press or leg curls afterward. If you're programming a posterior chain day with no squatting, RDLs can be the primary movement done first.
Yes, and it's often a good idea. The RDL is primarily a hamstring and glute exercise; grip becoming the limiting factor before the legs are fatigued is counterproductive. For volume work (sets of 8-12), straps let you train the intended muscle group to an honest level of fatigue without the set ending because of grip. Use bare hands for your warm-up sets and for any weight you can comfortably control, and add straps for the working sets if grip is failing before the legs. Hook grip is another option, though it's uncomfortable with a pronated grip at higher rep counts.
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