Romanian Deadlift — How I Train My Hamstrings

The Romanian deadlift is one of my favourite exercises for directly working my hamstrings and glutes. There are loads of tutorials out there showing every little detail you can possibly think of, but I’m not going to pretend there is only one perfect way that everybody has to follow.

What I’m going to do is run through exactly how I perform Romanian deadlifts, what I’m trying to feel and some of the mistakes I’ve made along the way.

I treat this differently from a conventional deadlift. I’m not trying to lift the biggest weight possible or prove how strong I am. For me, the Romanian deadlift is about controlling the movement, stretching the hamstrings under load and then using my hamstrings and glutes to bring myself back upright.

That description also fits what researchers have found when they have measured the movement. A systematic review of deadlift variations reported substantial hamstring activity during the Romanian deadlift, including the biceps femoris and semitendinosus.^[1] A separate electromyography study comparing Romanian, step-Romanian and stiff-leg deadlifts also examined the exercise as a posterior-chain movement involving the hamstrings, glutes and spinal erectors.^[2]

How I Start the Romanian Deadlift

I always start my Romanian deadlifts in the same way I start a normal deadlift.

I get my feet underneath the bar, with the bar roughly over my shoelaces. From there, I set myself and lift it from the floor like a conventional deadlift until I’m standing upright. Once I’m at the top, that is where the Romanian deadlift actually begins.

I normally stay around 90–100 kilograms. I can probably go heavier, but I’m not trying to go massively heavy on this exercise. The entire point is for me to control the weight and feel it working in my hamstrings and glutes.

If I have to lose my position just to add more plates, then the extra weight isn’t doing anything useful for me. Use a weight that is comfortable for you, not one chosen because somebody beside you is lifting more.

How I Perform the Hip Hinge

Once I’m standing with the bar, I put a slight bend in my knees and push my backside backwards.

The easiest way I can explain it is that I’m trying to send my hips towards the wall behind me. I’m not squatting the bar down. My hips travel backwards, my upper body comes forwards and the bar travels down close to my legs.

My arms stay straight and I try to keep my back in a strong, neutral position. I also keep my weight through the middle of my feet. I don’t want to roll onto my toes because I immediately feel less stable and lose the solid base I’m trying to work from.

As I lower the bar, I’m looking for the stretch across the back of my legs. Once I’ve reached the strongest stretch I can control without losing my position, I stop. That is the bottom of my repetition.

I’m not lowering the bar just for the sake of getting it closer to the floor.

How Low Do I Go?

This is where people can look completely different while still performing the exercise properly.

Your limb lengths, mobility and flexibility all affect how low the bar travels. The same individual differences affect other lifts too, which I explain in my squat mechanics guide. I’m relatively short, I’m quite flexible and I have long arms compared with my legs. If I’m using large bumper plates, I can sometimes touch the floor without deliberately trying to.

That doesn’t mean touching the floor is my target.

Most of the time, I stop with the bar around three or four inches above the floor. That is normally where I’ve reached the maximum hamstring stretch I can control while keeping everything else in position.

I’ve occasionally touched the floor with one bumper plate before the other, especially when I’m doing several repetitions. When that happens, I know I’ve gone too far, shifted unevenly or started forcing range that I don’t need.

The floor doesn’t decide the bottom of a Romanian deadlift. Your hamstrings and your ability to maintain the position do.

How I Return to the Top

Once I reach the bottom, I drive my hips forwards and bring myself back into the upright position.

I’m trying to keep the tension in my hamstrings and glutes rather than yanking the weight upwards with my lower back. The bar stays close to my legs and my hips come back underneath my body.

At the top, I stand tall and squeeze my glutes. I don’t throw my shoulders backwards or lean behind the bar to make the lockout look bigger. Once I’m standing upright with my hips and knees extended, the repetition is finished.

I normally control the lowering part of the repetition quite slowly. I can return to the top with more power, but I still want to remain in control of the bar.

Romanian Deadlift vs Stiff-Legged Deadlift

I’ve seen plenty of people perform stiff-legged deadlifts with their knees almost completely locked. Some people are flexible enough to do that comfortably, but it isn’t how I like to perform them.

When my knees are completely locked, I feel as though my weight starts moving towards my toes and I lose some of the stable foundation I want underneath me.

I prefer to keep a small bend in my knees. Once that bend is there, I try to keep it fairly consistent throughout the repetition.

If I keep bending my knees as the bar travels down, I start turning the exercise into more of a squat. The movement I’m after is a hip hinge: hips travelling backwards while the shins remain fairly still.

Mistakes I’ve Made With Romanian Deadlifts

The first mistake I’ve made is going too low simply because I’m flexible enough to do it. Just because I can reach the floor doesn’t mean every inch of that movement is benefiting my hamstrings.

The second is allowing one side of the bar to touch down first. That normally tells me I’ve shifted my weight or gone beyond the range I can control evenly.

I’ve also allowed the bar to drift forwards before. The further the bar moves away from my legs, the more it tries to pull me out of position. I now concentrate on keeping it close and maintaining tension through my upper back and lats.

The other big mistake is treating it like a normal deadlift and getting carried away with the weight. You can absolutely perform Romanian deadlifts heavily, but adding weight is only useful if you can still control the hinge and keep the tension where you want it.

What I’m Trying to Feel

As I lower the bar, I want to feel the tension building across my hamstrings. At the bottom, I want a strong, controlled stretch without my back rounding or my body being forced into a position it doesn’t want to hold.

On the way back up, I want to feel my hamstrings and glutes doing the work.

There is a difference between muscular tension and pain. Feeling the hamstrings stretch is the point of the exercise. Feeling something sharp, suddenly pulling or getting significant discomfort through the lower back is not something I would try to push through.

If that happens, I stop and look at the weight, my position and how far I’m lowering the bar.

The Cues I Use

I don’t want a list of twenty different instructions running through my head while I’m lifting. These are the main cues I use:

• Start tall with the bar under control.
• Keep a slight bend in the knees.
• Push the hips backwards.
• Keep the bar close to the legs.
• Stay balanced through the middle of the feet.
• Keep the back neutral.
• Stop when the hamstrings reach their deepest controlled stretch.
• Drive the hips forwards to stand back up.
• Finish tall and squeeze the glutes without leaning backwards.

What the Research Can—and Cannot—Tell Me

The studies support using the Romanian deadlift as a posterior-chain exercise, but I don’t use an EMG reading to pretend there is one compulsory technique for everybody. Muscle-activity measurements can show which muscles are working during a movement; they don’t automatically prove how much muscle one person will build or dictate the perfect depth for every body shape.

That is why I use the evidence alongside what I can control in practice: a stable position, a neutral back, the bar kept close and a range of motion determined by my hamstrings rather than the floor.

References

1. Martín-Fuentes I, et al. Electromyographic activity in deadlift exercise and its variants: a systematic review. PLOS ONE. 2020.
2. Coratella G, et al. An Electromyographic Analysis of Romanian, Step-Romanian, and Stiff-Leg Deadlift. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022.

Final Thoughts

For me, the Romanian deadlift isn’t about reaching the floor or showing everybody how much weight I can hold. It is about controlling the hip hinge, putting the hamstrings under tension and then using the hamstrings and glutes to return to the top.

Your version might not look exactly like mine. You might be taller, less flexible or have completely different limb proportions. That doesn’t automatically mean one of us is performing it incorrectly.

Choose a weight you can control, find the range that suits your structure and make every repetition deliberate. If the tension is in the muscles you are trying to train and your position stays strong, the exercise is doing its job.