Romanian deadlift: how to do it, and how many

How it should look

Weight into the heels, hips travel back, spine long. Stand tall at the top.

What it needs

One weight held at arm’s length. A dumbbell, a kettlebell, or a bag with a handle.

With nothing at all

Hands on your hips, same movement, three seconds down. The hinge is a pattern before it is a lift and most people have never been shown it.

The three faults that actually show up

Not an exhaustive list. These are the ones that turn up, in this order, and each is written as the fix rather than as the mistake.

It turns into a squat

The hips travel backwards, not down. Stand a foot from a wall and push your hips back until they touch it.

The back rounds at the bottom

Stop where it rounds. That is your range today and it will get longer. Going past it is the whole injury.

The weight drifts away from the legs

It should brush your thighs the whole way. A weight out in front is a lever against your back.

Easier, and harder

The same movement, scaled. Take the easier version until it is easy, then take the harder one. Neither is a different exercise and neither is a lesser one.

Easier

One dumbbell held at the hips, or a loaded bag.

Harder

Slow the lower to three seconds and stop at mid shin.

Or swap it for

Hands on hips, no weight. One dumbbell held at the hips. Three seconds down, stopping at mid shin

What an MDRN plan starts you on

Straight out of the plan engine, not out of an article. This is the band before anything moves it: experience sets it, the goal then tilts it, and the block moves it a rung at a time across twelve weeks, so your own plan may read heavier or longer than this.

New to this

2 sets of 10 when it leads the session, 2 sets of 12 when it does not. Stop with 4 in the tank.

Coming back to it

3 sets of 8 when it leads the session, 2 sets of 10 when it does not. Stop with 3 in the tank.

Training already

3 sets of 8 when it leads the session, 3 sets of 10 when it does not. Leave 2 in reserve.

Years of it

4 sets of 5 when it leads the session, 3 sets of 8 when it does not. Leave 1 to 2 in reserve.

The longer version

• The six movements a week of training actually needsPush, pull, hinge, squat, carry, brace. Every useful strength programme is a rearrangement of these six, and you can do all of them in a front room with no equipment.