Chris Beardsley's Garage Gym » Romanian Deadlift http://www.thegaragegymonline.com Get stronger, gain muscle, lose fat - all in your garage Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:00:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Introducing: the Romanian Deadlift (RDL) http://www.thegaragegymonline.com/2009/12/30/introducing-the-romanian-deadlift-rdl/ http://www.thegaragegymonline.com/2009/12/30/introducing-the-romanian-deadlift-rdl/#comments Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:00:21 +0000 Chris http://www.thegaragegymonline.com/?p=1007 Continue reading →]]> This is just a quick post to introduce the Romanian Deadlift (RDL), an exercise I have introduced into my programme to help strengthen my lower back.  It’s a famous exercise that is popular with whole generation of strength coaches, including Bill Starr, but seems to have fallen out of favour more recently. 

It’s also a sneaky introduction for me to the world of embedding video into my blog so please bear with me while I get used to the technical side of things!

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So, what is this RDL of which you speak?

The Romanian Deadlift is a deadlift performed from the top position downwards rather than from the ground upwards.  It is performed with a slight bend in the knees and most of the movement comes from the hips.  To perform it, you think about pushing your behind back rather than bending forwards. 

This is a short video of me doing RDLs for the first time.  Unfortunately, I seem to have uploaded the video sideways.  I’ll try and make sure this doesn’t happen again! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_WFiE4sfM4

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That looks hard.  Why bother?

Most people associate the RDL with hamstring development and I’ll be happily taking any increases in hamstring strength that come along for the ride.  My purpose in using the RDL, though is to help with my deadlift and back squat by strengthening my lower back.  This will hopefully enable me to hold my torso more upright during the starting portion of the deadlift.  I’m also hoping it will enable me to increase my stability in the hole in the back squat and therefore keep proper form.

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Where can I find out more?

There are some great resources out there on the Romanian Deadlift.  Here are just a few:

If you know of any other articles out there about this exercise, please do let me know.  I am looking to improve my form and performance on this lift as much as I can in 2010.  For me, this year is going to be mostly about my lower back.

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