The Romanian Deadlift is an effective way to target your posterior chain muscles, particularly your hamstrings. However, for beginners this exercise may prove challenging as its movements don’t involve straight legs.
Romanian deadlifting involves keeping both knees bent at an angle similar to that used for snatching or hang cleaning, giving more range of motion and lessening reliance on lower back strength and hamstring flexibility.
What is the Stiff Legged Deadlift?
The stiff leg deadlift is a variation of the Romanian deadlift used to target your lower back muscles, as well as to develop strong hip hinge movement patterns and increase how much weight can be lifted off of the ground.
The stiff legged deadlift begins by placing a barbell on the floor in a normal hip-width stance, before driving your hips forward while contracting your lower back to lift it to just above your knees. At that point, lower it back down again and repeat.
Like its Romanian deadlift counterpart, stiff-leg deadlifting targets glutes and hamstrings. However, unlike its RDL counterpart, it does not require as much knee flexion, which allows you to lift heavier loads than with its RDL equivalent – however this also places extra strain on hamstrings.
Both RDLs and stiff-leg deadlifts are effective ways of developing strength in your posterior chain, but should only be performed as additional exercises on days where increasing power output is not a primary focus. As such, you should include both when you don’t feel confident doing more intense deadlifting exercises.
Romanian deadlifting requires that you can perform regular deadlifts successfully before adding this variation; with stiff-leg deadlifting, however, starting position can be more forgiving and good form is less essential to adding this movement.
Beginners or those new to lifting heavy loads off the ground should avoid starting off with the stiff-leg deadlift as this requires quite advanced movements from your lower back, hips, and hamstrings. A Romanian deadlift may be more suitable as it allows training with lighter loads while still developing the key movements necessary for future progressions.
What is the Romanian Deadlift?
The Romanian Deadlift (RDL), also known as RDL, is a great exercise to work your posterior chain muscles – including glutes, hamstrings and adductor muscles (those along your inner thighs). It involves hinging from hips to lift weight off of the floor. Romanian deadlifts may provide relief for people experiencing back pain as well as those wanting lighter loads with greater repetitions.
Nicu Vlad, Olympic and world weightlifting champion, and Dragomir Cioroslan created the Romanian Deadlift (RDL). It is often used as part of a weightlifting routine to prepare for clean and jerks by strengthening muscles of the back, core, and lower body. RDL can be performed using either barbells or dumbbells and beginners should start out light in weight to maintain proper form and avoid injuries.
When performing Romanian deadlifts, it’s essential that the barbell remains close to your shins throughout. Some coaches may suggest “painting your shins with the bar.” Additionally, driving through your heels upon reaching the top of each movement helps isolate both your hamstrings and glutes, providing maximum benefits.
Romanian deadlifts can be completed using either a barbell or dumbbells; some prefer using dumbbells because it feels more comfortable for their shoulders and hips. Furthermore, this deadlift technique may also be performed using a deficit (i.e. standing on an elevated block to reduce knee pressure).
As with the stiff legged deadlift, the Romanian deadlift is an effective way to build muscle in both your back and lower body. However, unlike traditional deadlifts it focuses more intensely on working hamstrings and glutes compared to its counterpart. Plus it’s easier on knees so could be ideal for people suffering with knee issues.
What is the Difference Between the Stiff Legged Deadlift and the Romanian Deadlift?
Both Romanian deadlift and stiff leg deadlift exercises can help strengthen muscles of your lower back, hips and hamstrings while developing your pull strength for sports performance lifts such as snatches and cleans. But each pose different advantages that could influence which one best fits your goals.
The main distinction is that with the Romanian deadlift you never let the barbell touch the floor between reps, maintaining tension on your muscles throughout your set and helping build muscle mass more quickly. On the other hand, stiff leg deadlift allows for resting of the barbell against the ground between reps, relieving tension temporarily but not providing as strong of a pump and building muscle mass as quickly.
Another major distinction is the Romanian deadlift’s emphasis on hip hinge motion over stiff leg deadlift. This puts more stress on your hips and glutes, helping improve consistency of deadlift and build greater strength in hips, glutes and posterior chain. On the contrary, stiff leg deadlift puts additional pressure on lower back which may result in disc degeneration if performed with too much weight over an extended period.
Stiff leg deadlifts offer an effective means of improving deadlift form or for people with limited knee or ankle mobility. Furthermore, stiff leg deadlifts serve as a transition from hip hinge movement of conventional deadlifts to more dynamic movements such as squats or power cleans.
Advanced lifters may find both Romanian and stiff leg deadlifts beneficial for increasing their deadlift max, though beginners should begin training by practicing only Romanian deadlifts initially as it will help build strong hip hinge movements and standard deadlift technique more easily than the stiff legged version, which requires significant hamstring flexibility and technical prowess that may prove challenging to master at first.
Which Should I Do?
While both exercises work the same muscles and can be included in a training program, which one you choose depends on your goals. If your aim is to build lower back strength and mobility, Romanian deadlifts may be your perfect solution; their reduced stress on knees and decreased spinal flexion make for less risk of herniated discs compared with stiff-leg deadlifts; plus because the bar doesn’t come all the way down with RDL, their movement is easier on shoulders and hips.
Stiff leg deadlifts, on the other hand, are an effective way to achieve increased hamstring and glute hypertrophy. Although these lifts work towards this goal effectively, they do require greater lower back flexibility as well as an unrestricted hip hinge – thus leading many people to use them only as secondary lifts rather than primary movements.
Both lifts can be performed using only one leg to make them more accessible for beginners, but this will significantly decrease how much weight can be lifted at one time and put additional stress on hips and hamstrings, making movements more complex.
Beginners might benefit from beginning with Romanian deadlifts until they learn how to properly execute standard ones. Executing stiff-leg deadlifts require flexibility in your hamstrings as well as technical expertise which many beginners simply don’t possess.
Consider also the range of motion needed for each lift, as this will determine its effectiveness. For example, Romanian deadlift has a shorter range of motion than stiff-leg deadlift as the bar only goes to about shin height with RDL while for stiff-leg deadlift it must touch the ground.
Finaly, keep in mind that Romanian deadlifting requires a great deal of coordination and balance. Therefore, it should only be performed by lifters with excellent balance or unstable joints; especially if performing heavier loads. If unsure how to safely execute an RDL session, seek assistance from either your coach or training partner.
