Romanian deadlift

[BestZebbie]

I’m looking to add leg exercises to my arm dumbbell routine, and Romanian deadlifts come up as an essential alongside squats and lunges……but am I missing something, they just seem to be the exact default “lifting with your back” manoeuvre that everyone is always told not to do and to always lift by bending the knees instead?

How does one do a Romanian deadlift safely?

It’s not quite the same as the bending over to lift that you’re advised not to do.

You hinge at the hips, push your bum back, hold the barbell close to your legs the whole time, and slightly bend your knees.

Unsafe lifting would be straight legs, not pushing bum back, and reaching forward to lift up.

described perfectly @MellowSubmarine .

Try to consciously switch on your hamstrings (back of your legs above the knee). That’s where you should feel it the next day if you’re doing them right. Weak hamstrings are one of the things associated with back problems - Romanian deadlifts help you learn how to use hamstrings instead of your back muscles. They do feel weird/pointless at first, until you get the form right. It helps to stand a foot or so in front of a wall and push your bum back as you bend, until you’re touching the wall with your backside. Do not arch your back. Bend until you feel your hammies stretch, and then do the lift using the hamstrings, not your back. And once you have the form right you might find you need quite heavy weights, because hamstrings are big muscles (when you finally manage to prod them into action).

they just seem to be the exact default “lifting with your back” manoeuvre that everyone is always told not to do

I get a bit sick of the scare tactics around deadlifts. The varieties of deadlift are all quite technical, but they are very very good for strengthening your back, glutes & hamstrings - the whole posterior chain.

And the cause of "bad backs" is far more likely to be a weak posterior chain than doing exercises with good form and lifting as heavy as you can manage for say, 3 sets of 5 reps (or whatever pattern feels OK to you).

You can feel your way up to your heavy weight by doing ascending sets. Using dumbbells start with an easy weight, as a warm up set, then try going up by 1-2 kilos each set. Try to finish each set with a couple of reps in reserve. Then next time, you know you can start (or finish) a bit heavier.

You need to challenge your muscles with weights that are at the edge of your capacity, then give yourself recovery time, which is when muscles grow & get stronger - in response to stressing them!

With good form, as @MellowSubmarine and @PacificState describe, you'll get a good strong posterior chain, which is the best defence against an injured back!

Hinge, hinge, hinge.

MegSquats video on different kinds of deadlifts is really good:

(I rate Meg - her stuff is what she herself does & her technical coaching is excellent - for YouTube)

Watch some tutorials on YouTube. Romanian Deadlifts should in now way be lifting with your back.