How To Romanian Deadlift STOP 'til you know how to do THIS

Published on Aug 21, 2015
In this video, I explain a HUGE deadlift mistake that could be causing you back pain and/or hindering your deadlift potential. I also explain how to correctly perform a Romanian Deadlift (RDL)

Intro

What’s up everybody, today I want to talk to you about something that I see a lot of people fail to do while dead lifting, and it’s probably the most important part of properly executing a deadlift.

STOP Deadlifting Until You Learn How to Do THIS

The deadlift get’s a bad name from a lot of people, and most people who give it a bad name are usually doing it wrong. They’ll say, “Just bend over, and pick it up”, “Make sure you squat down really low and use as much leg drive as possible”. while the dead lift may look like a simple movement, there’s actually quite a bit that goes into

correctly executing it. If you frequently injure your back while dead lifting, if you fail to maintain a neutral spine, even when you’re lifting less than maximum loads, or if you constantly experience debilitating lower back pain after you dead lift, chances are you are failing to do the most important step of correctly executing a dead lift.

What Is It?!

When dead lifting, you must understand how to:

load the hamstrings
engage the posterior chain and
hinge at the hips

Engaging the hamstrings and glutes during the dead lift is beneficial for a number of reasons. Here’s a couple..

Reason #1: Engaging = Developing

The point of training should be to strengthen muscles and/or increase their size. The deadlift is one of the best exercises for developing a strong posterior chain. If you are not engaging your hamstrings and glutes while you deadlift, you’re not developing them like you could be. You’re completely missing out on the benefit of deadlifting.

“Hey dude, so why do you do deadlifts anyway?”

“Uhh… ’cause my program said so?”

To me, dead lifting, and not getting any hamstring or glute work is like squatting, and not get any legwork: you’re probably doing something wrong.

Reason #2: Your Poor Lower Back Is Doing ALL THE WORK!

If your glutes and hamstrings aren’t doing any of the work, your lower back is forced to do it all. Learn how to engage your hamstrings and glutes, and you will notice that the weight will feel lighter because you have more prime movers doing their job. Your lower back thank you. So, understanding that you need to engage new hamstrings and glutes is one thing, but actually knowing how to do it is another.

So… How Does One “Engage the Hamstrings?”

I teach someone how to load the hamstrings by performing Romanian deadlifts. Start with the barbell at hip height. While maintaining a neutral spine (no need to over-exaggerate and hyper-extend), sit your hips back and slide the bar building down your thighs. This is what I mean by hinging at the hips. Allow a very slight bend at the knees, do not lock them out. Continue sitting the hips back, and sliding the barbell down your body. Make sure you maintain a tight lower back – feel the stretch in your hamstrings. This is good – go down as low as you can until you have reached the end of your hamstring flexibility. You’ll know you’re at this point where you feel your lower back start to flex over or round – DO NOT REACH THIS POINT! If your lower back starts to round, you have gone too far.

I cannot stress this enough: do NOT allow your lumbar spine to flex over or round. How far you can lower the barvell does not matter. What matters is going far enough to stretch and load the hamstrings. If you have very tight hamstrings, and you can only lower the bar just aboe your knees – that’s ok! Do not try to go further because you think have to lower the bar to mid-shin.

So, once you have reached the end of your hamstring flexibility, and you feel the stretch your hamstrings, you have now properly loaded the hamstrings. Reverse the movement by pulling with your hamstrings, and snapping your hips through by squeezing your glutes together don’t get this confused with just leaning back. Think “hips through, not lean back”

Squeeze those booty cheeks together!

Pretend you’re in prison, and you were trying to send the message that you are not open for business!

Transferring from Romanian Deadlift to Conventional Dead Lift

So obviously you’re not gonna start dead lifting from the top down, so how do you load your hamstrings when the barbell is on the floor? I would suggest setting up to a barbell bar directly over mid-foot, and doing a Romanian deadlift down to the barbell. Keep the tension on your hamstrings, pull, then hips through. Now perform a controlled negative by performing a Romanian deadlift. Once the barbell passes the knees, set the barbell down over mid-foot – constantly keep tension on the hamstrings. Repeat.

If you are still feeling your lower back round at the bottom, or it rounds as soon as you pull, you might have tight hamstrings or weak hamstrings. Your hamstring connects under the glute and at the top-back of the knee. If they’re tight, they will pull your pelvis into a posterior tilt, and your butt will tuck under you. Making it difficult or impossible to maintain a neutral lumbar spine at the start of the dead lift position. To fix this, continue doing Romanian deadlifts. This is a great way to stretch the hamstrings. Do a few sets of 10 as a warm-up. You should also static stretch the hamstrings, but make sure you force anterior pelvic tilt. Do not around forward and allow your butt to tuck under, that’s what we are trying to avoid. You might also notice that your lower back rounds as soon as you pull, and that could be caused by weak hamstrings. Your hamstrings might not be strong enough to support the load on the bar and as soon as the bar comes off the ground, they run and hide. To fix this, I would suggest continue doing rRomanian deadlifts.

So, To Recap

Learning how to load the hamstrings, engage the posterior chain, and hinge at the hips, will ensure you are strengthening the right muscles, and it’ll give your poor lower back some much needed help. So that’s it guys! I hope that helps.

How To Romanian Deadlift: STOP deadlifting until you learn how to do THIS