The Romanian deadlift is one of the versatile and effective deadlift variations that target posterior chain muscles, including erector spinae, glutes, and hamstrings without putting a lot of training stress. It begins with the eccentric phase, ensuring the tension on the posterior chain to stimulate muscular growth in the glutes and hamstrings
To execute Romanian Deadlift :
- Hold the barbell in front of your thighs and lower to the ground by pushing your hips back, maintaining the barbell over the center of your foot.
- Throughout the lift, keep the bar close to your body, and maintain a chest up position and a neutral spine.
How is it different from a deadlift?
The Romanian deadlift is similar to the conventional deadlift but :
- It begins from a standing position rather than from the floor.
- Instead of taking the barbell all the way down, lower it until the hamstrings are fully stretched.
Benefits of Romanian Deadlift:
In day-to-day life, there are many instances like picking a heavy water bottle from the ground, lifting a child up off the ground where one has to lean forward and pick something from the ground, the movement looks like RDL. Doing RDL during a training session makes the technique better and reduces the chances of injury. It is also used in rehabilitation and injury prevention. One should learn how to perform a standing hip hinge without weight before progressing to using an external load. Regardless of sport or training goal, the Romanian deadlift is a highly effective movement for every athlete.
Strength development:
For an Olympic lifter, training revolves around the three big lifts (squats, bench press, and deadlift) where the athlete has to lift near maximum load. Lifting maximal loads for every training session can lead to neural and muscular fatigue, under-recovery, injury, etc. There is only so much an athlete can recover from. The Romanian deadlift, as an accessory exercise, is extremely beneficial to an Olympic lifter after the main deadlift work. It is a great exercise to develop strength in the posterior kinetic chain. The conventional deadlift puts more training stress and is highly fatiguing. It requires far less knee extension than a conventional deadlift, altering the lift's mechanics and due to the difference in the execution of the movement, it allows an athlete to increase deadlift performance.
For a strength athlete, it can be programmed as:
- Accessory exercise
- Accumulating high volume / low intensity in a cycle
- Working around injury or limitations.
Hypertrophy :
The Romanian Deadlift is one of the best exercises when loading a hip hinge movement. From a hypertrophy point of view, RDL is a better movement than a conventional deadlift because it focuses on the eccentric phase (lowering down the barbell) of the movement targeting hamstrings and glutes at extended muscle lengths instead of the concentric phase (lifting phase). Because conventional deadlift is more taxing on the posterior chain and requires a full range of motion, many lifters are not able to accumulate volume which is the main driver of muscle growth.
Athletic Development and Sports Performance:
Hip extension is the fundamental action in many sports and allows for a better power phase during jumping, kicking, cycling, swimming, changing direction while playing a sport, etc. The prime action involved during RDL is hip extension. Many athletes experience sprains during sprinting when hamstrings are too weak. Exercises like RDL, which target hamstring and glute activation as well as appropriate hip flexion and extension patterning, can help avoid lower back, hip, and hamstring injuries.
