By: Elinor Emesz and Igor Klibanov
You want to develop your glutes, hamstrings and lower back muscles. It might be because you want to compete in powerlifting, or because you simply want bigger glutes. Either way, single leg Romanian deadlifts (RDLs) are a great exercise for these goals. Not only that, if you want to improve your overall stability, the single leg Romanian deadlift is a good choice. Since it is a Romanian deadlift on one leg at a time, it really emphasizes your stability and balance.

In this article we’ll cover what you need to know about single leg Romanian deadlifts, including:
● Benefits
● The major drawback
● How to perform it
● Common mistakes to avoid
● Variations
● Alternatives
● Programming
● Progressions
But before we start, you might be wondering what qualifies me to talk about single leg Romanian deadlifts, so let me introduce myself.
Hi.
I’m Igor.
I am the author of 7 books on exercise and nutrition, including Run Faster, Jump Higher, Go Farther.
Additionally, I am the CEO and owner of Fitness Solutions Plus. We help people get stronger, leaner and more toned. I am also a personal trainer and have been selected as one of the top 5 personal trainers in Toronto.
Now that you know a bit more about me, let’s get started.
Benefits Of Single Leg RDLs
One of the main benefits of single leg Romanian deadlifts is that it can improve your stability and balance, since it requires balancing and working on one leg at a time, hence the name single leg Romanian deadlifts. However, it has a wider range of benefits including:
● It works and develops your glutes, hamstrings and lower back muscles (posterior chain muscles).
● It may decrease your risk of injury
○ One of the biggest risks for lower back injury is the inability to differentiate between lower back motion, and hip motion.
■ If you do it properly, the single leg RDL is all hip motion, AKA a hip hinge. This would prevent you from using your lower back muscles and put the stress on your hip muscles, which is what they are meant for, thus decreasing the risk of injuries to your lower back.
● It has good carryover to real-life activities, like picking things up off the ground such as groceries, furniture, kids, etc.
● It has athletic purposes, such as helping you do faster strides for sprinting
The Major Drawback
Though one of the main benefits of the single Romanian deadlifts is it can help your balance and stability, it can also go the other way. What I mean by this is that since you would be
putting all your weight on one leg, it puts a large demand on your balance. This means that there’s a possibility that you might lose your balance before you are able to actually work the target muscles. If you’re using it as a balance exercise, this is fine, but if you’re using it as a strength exercise, it’s not a very good one.
Because of this, I rarely use single leg RDLs with my clients. Instead, I make a small modification, and have my clients hold on to something stable, like a rack or a pole. This would take balance out of the picture, and make it more of a strength exercise.
Overall, it really depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to improve your balance, this exercise is great, and no modification is needed. However, if you want to improve your strength, I recommend you make the modification I previously mentioned.
How To Perform A Single Leg RDL
There are a number of ways to do the single leg Romanian deadlifts, mostly depending on your goal, so here are the steps for how to do the most common and proper form:
1. If you are doing it on your left leg, hold on to something stable (such as a wall, rack, pole, etc.) with your right hand (the hand opposite to the leg you’re putting your weight on).
2. In your left hand, hold a dumbbell (make sure it’s the right weight for your goals – we’ll discuss that later in this article).
3. Reach your hips back, lifting your right leg as you reach, until the dumbbell gets to your mid/lower shin. This might sound confusing, so essentially, what you’re trying to do here is make your back horizontal and make your right leg a sort of extension of your back, like this:
Original source: here.
4. Come back up until your back is upright, like so:
Original source: here.
5. Repeat
Common Mistakes To Avoid
Though performing single leg RDLs might seem simple, there are a few mistakes you should avoid to help prevent injury and/or help it effectively target your muscles, including:
● Thinking about going down instead of going back
○ Going down works your quads, while thinking about going back works your glutes, which is what you would normally be targeting.
● Rounding your spine
● Locking your knee
● Bending your knee too much (more than about 60 degrees)
Variations Of Single Leg RDLs
Every variation of the single leg Romanian deadlift is different either because of what you hold or what position your knee/hip is in. You can also create different variations with different implements to hold including a medicine ball, kettlebell, barbell, or others.
The medicine ball variation is the same, except instead of holding a dumbbell in one hand, you’d be holding a medicine ball with both of your hands, and like in the original, you’d simply be switching which leg you’re standing on.
The kettlebell variation is very similar to the original, but instead of holding a dumbbell, you’d be holding a kettlebell. Because the kettlebell is closer to the ground, the range of motion is shorter. Unless you’re so tall that even when the handle of the kettlebell reaches your lower/mid shin, it’s still off the ground.
Lastly the barbell variation is more similar to the medicine ball variation than the original, since you’d be holding a barbell in both your hands (like you would with a medicine ball in that variation), using an overhand grip, whereas in the original you hold a dumbbell in one hand.
As I touched on earlier, the other thing that differentiates between variations of single leg RDLs is the knee/hip position. Each of these variations is meant to target a different muscle. 3 examples of these variations are:
1. Straight knee instead of a bent one: this emphasizes the hamstrings, with less emphasis on the glutes and quads.
2. Bending the knee to about 25-30 degrees emphasizes the glutes, with less emphasis on the hamstrings and quads.
3. Bending the knee more than 45 degrees emphasizes the quads.
Alternatives To Single Leg RDLs
There are many alternatives to single leg Romanian deadlifts, including different variations of deadlifts such as the stiff leg deadlift, bodyweight single leg RDL, sumo deadlift, etc. Here are the 4 best exercises to use as alternatives:
1. Good Mornings
a. The good morning is a great alternative to the single leg RDL because it targets the same muscles (glutes, hamstrings, and lower back). The exercise itself however is quite different. The main differences are:
i. A good morning is on two legs
ii. In a good morning, the weight is placed on your upper back
iii. The good morning requires you to have good shoulder mobility
b. For more information, feel free to check out my article on good mornings.
2. Glute Ham Raises
- Although they have the word “glute” in their name, glute-ham raises really only work the hamstrings really well. The glutes and lower back are working statically, and usually not hard enough to get stronger.
3. Standard Deadlifts
a. Like the other alternatives, standard deadlifts work the same muscles as the single leg RDL (hamstrings, glutes, and lower back) and are great for improving lower body strength. When doing a standard deadlift, make sure to keep your hips square, knees slightly bent, and your back straight (but not necessarily upright).
. Essentially, the single leg RDL is a one-sided version of a standard deadlift with a twist. In a standard deadlift, you are basically lifting a weight while doing a hip hinge.
b. In a single leg RDL, you are basically pushing your hips back on one leg, while leaning forward (also with your hip), and the twist is you lift your other leg (the one you aren’t balancing on) as you do a hip hinge until your back is as parallel to the floor as you can get it. Because of this, standard deadlifts require less balance since you would be on both legs. So if balance isn’t your strong point nor your target, standard deadlifts are the way to go.
i) Note that a hip hinge is when your knees have a soft bend, you lean forward (only with your upper body) while pushing your hips back, all the while keeping your back straight, like so:
4. Reverse Hypers
a. Reverse hypers work primarily the lower back muscle and glutes. To a much lesser extent, they also work the hamstrings.
Programming
When it comes to programming (meaning how many sets and reps you should do), it depends on what your goal is. For example, the number of sets and reps would be lower for muscle building than for building strength. To give you a guideline, here are approximate sets and reps for typical goals:
● Lower back pain prevention: 1-3 sets of 10-20 reps
● Building strength (when your goal is strength not how big your muscles are): 3-10 sets of 3-6 reps ● Muscle hypertrophy (AKA muscle building)
○ Muscle hypertrophy is measured more by weekly sets than daily sets, so guidelines for weekly sets are:
■ Beginners: 6-10 sets/week
■ Intermediates/advanced trainees: 24 sets or more/week
○ Also keep in mind that reps for muscle building aren’t as important as how close you get to muscular failure. Research shows that whether you do low or high reps, you get equal muscle growth, and that the main variable is how close you are to muscular failure. I recommend that you stay within 1-4 reps of failure to reduce your risk of getting injured.
Progressions
The single leg Romanian deadlift challenges your stability, balance, and muscle strength. If you’ve mastered it or feel it’s getting easy, here are a few ways to spice it up a bit:
● Use increasingly heavy weight: increases your strength
● Do more reps: increases your muscular endurance
● Do more sets: primarily increases your muscular and cardiovascular endurance, as well as your strength to a lesser extent
● Faster: increases both speed and power
● Slower: increases muscular endurance
● Have shorter rest periods
○ If doing straight sets, shorter rest periods increase muscular endurance
○ If doing circuits, and moving from Romanian deadlifts to a different exercise, shorter rest periods increase cardiovascular endurance