A Guide to Romanian Deadlifts, King of Glute Exercises

RDLs Rule for Glute Strength

When performed correctly, RDLs net a huge muscle response for growth in the glutes. Hip thrusts only target a small range of motion compared to the RDL. What do you need for building muscle? Range of motion. This is where the RDL takes home the gold.
But you need to execute it correctly.

Why is Range of Motion Important?

When we want to grow a muscle, the amount of range we can go through with that muscle is the key to its growth. As is putting the muscle under load during both the concentric (the “up” phase of a lift) and eccentric phase (the “down”) of a lift. The deeper your range of motion through a movement (with control), the more stretching and “tearing” the muscle endures, which is what leads to hypertrophy.

The RDL combines the best of both worlds — you don’t rest the weight on the ground at the bottom of the lift, so your posterior chain is under constant tension for the entire set.

The hip thrust, on the other hand, uses a very small range of motion and it’s easy to forget to control the eccentric phase, so you might find your glutes are working less.

How To Hinge For Perfect Romanian Deadlift Form

The reason most people botch the RDL is because they can’t hinge. We’ve all seen those videos of people rounding their backs, looking like the hunchback of Notre Dame. Another fault is squatting instead of hinging so they only feel their quads working.

There’s a simple and easy way to learn how to hinge. It starts by opening a door.

Yes, open a door to about 45 degrees, stand a foot away from it and turn so your back is to it, feet shoulder width apart. Without moving your feet, try to shut the door with your bum.

What do you notice? Your shins are vertical, your knees are only slightly bent, your chest dips forward and your hips move backward.

All of these positions are key for a quality RDL. Here’s a breakdown of cues for the RDL by body part.

Knees Fixed

When most people hinge, they squat down at the same time. Your knees should only bend slightly during an RDL — not fully locked, but also not bent like in a squat.

When you bend your knees too much, you take that vital tension out of your hamstrings and glutes. This tension is necessary to elicit a growth response. Your shins stay mostly vertical.

Hips Back

Your glutes move your hips. If your hips aren’t moving, your glutes aren’t growing. By pushing your hips backward in space you’re creating length and stretch in your glutes and hamstrings.

If your hips stop moving backwards and you feel like you’ve hit the end of your range of motion, come back up. It doesn’t matter if you’re only at mid-thigh, your flexibility might stop you there for today, but with time and practice it’ll improve. If you keep going down once your hips stop moving, something else is being loaded and 9 times out of 10 it’s your back. Hips keep moving backward.

Lats Engaged

We want the bar to stay close to our legs. If the bar leaves your body, then your back will jump in and take over the exercise. Not what we want if we’re trying to build that booty.

So what I like to cue is to imagine you’re trying to break the bar over your legs, like you’re snapping a twig. This will cause you to externally rotate your shoulders (the front of your elbow will face forward) and in turn your lats will fire up to keep that bar tight to your body. Snap the bar like a twig.