Proper form for Romanian Deadlift

[MelanieC]

I’ve been doing deadlifts with Cathe’s workouts for years and I‘ve always wondered if I’m doing them properly. So I finally looked it up and found this great video I thought I’d share with fellow Cathletes, since I believe the deadlifts Cathe is showing us in her workouts is the Romanian deadlift:

let me know what you all think! next time I do deadlifts with Cathe I’m going to really make sure I’ve got proper alignment.

MelanieC

 

[Jane Power-Grimm]

Wow! Excellent tips. Thanks so much. I found this very helpful.

 

[Hazlady]

This is a good video, doing dead lifts with bad form can give all kinds of back issues especially when you use heavy weight.

I was having trouble with dead lifts where I kept getting pain on the left side of my lower back. I have an ActivMotion Glimpse bar (which is a 4ft, 4.5lb steel bar half full of ball bearings and a window so you can see the balls, kind of like a spirit level for your body), and used this to check my form. Turns out I was twisting slightly through the hips and I really need to concentrate on keeping my right hip back. As my right hip was coming forward it was putting strain on the left side of my lower back. I also need to bend through the knees more to achieve this as I have tight hamstrings. Since correcting my form I haven't had any further back issues.

 

[Nanbo]

What do you guys think of the way she "snaps" up to stand after bending over? Cathe always has smooth movements and tells us NOT to hyper-extend at the end of the move; however, I see a lot of people do this "snap" up and hyper-extend.

 

[lisa_la_machina]

What do you guys think of the way she "snaps" up to stand after bending over? Cathe always has smooth movements and tells us NOT to hyper-extend at the end of the move; however, I see a lot of people do this "snap" up and hyper-extend.

I tend to go with what Bret Contreras advises for DLs and squats. In this case he says to do a posterior glute squeeze at the top of the DL for superior glute activation, but he shows it being a MUCH smoother movement than the "snap" shown by the woman in the above video. To each her own and listen to your body but I have really felt a difference following Bret's tips. Also no back pain when done this way, at least not for me.

 

[MelanieC]

What do you guys think of the way she "snaps" up to stand after bending over? Cathe always has smooth movements and tells us NOT to hyper-extend at the end of the move; however, I see a lot of people do this "snap" up and hyper-extend.

I wondered about this too - but I think that she wasn't necessarily an expert on the move because at one point the instructor had to correct her on how she was holding her head.