One of my pillar exercises that builds your glutes: Romanian Deadlifts

The great debate of which exercises train your glutes the best will continue to the end of time. The field of exercise training is always evolving. We’ll probably never know what works best the human body is so complex.

So, throughout my years of lifting and studying about exercises, my principle stands firm that heavy compound movements are the base of any good muscle training program.

Are they the best exercises to do to target individual muscles efficiently?

No.

But they teach you how to control your body while lifting heavy loads. They require proper technique to do them efficiently. Isolation exercises on the other hand such as the abductor machine or bicep curls are effective at loading a single muscle. This ensures that the growth-promoting stimulus goes toward the area that is being trained. But you can’t lift as much as with these types of exercises because you are moving at only one joint, meaning fewer muscles are activated to help you lift the weight. Isolation exercises have their place, and they definitely should be included in any decent program. Heavy compounds are the foundation of the building, and isolation is the design or the finishing touches. But you can do only isolation exercises and grow at the same rate but you’ll miss out on the other benefits, such as coordination and flexibility you might gain from an ass to grass squat.

So, if you’re trying to build glutes, compound exercises work the best because of their extra benefits. Romanian deadlifts might be the exercise for you. Look at bodybuilders, who arguably have the biggest glutes in the world. Almost all of them which I can bet my life on, got their glutes from doing heavy hip hinges and hip thrusts. They didn’t get most of their glute gains from doing kickbacks and cable abduction. These movements are great but they are just the icing on the cake, as I mentioned before.

You can’t overload them as much as you can with deadlifts or barbell glute bridges. You are just using more muscles to perform these exercises versus isolation. You can’t really isolate the glutes; they are connected to everything.

I have always had some kind of heavy movement in my program. And you should too.

I started focusing on growing my glutes recently but they are already pretty big from just heavy lifting. If I had never done any heavy hip hinges, I would never have grown them to such a size. I have only added a few movements and changed my walking lunge form to make them focus more on the glutes than the quads and other support muscles. You’d better believe some type of RDL will always be included in my program. Another reason I started training my glutes directly to better help my clients.. So let me convince you why RDL should be included in your training

My Technique For Using RDL To Blow Up The Glutes

So I’m going to walk you through my technique on how I use the RDL to target my glutes. There are 100s of different ways to do the RDL. This is the way that works for me and how I would train my clients. But your RDL may look different from mine because of body type, limb length, and such.

Start position

Whether starting from the ground or from a rack position is a preference when doing a glute-focused RDL; the actual concentric(raising the bar) and eccentric(lowering the bar) phases are more important. Most of the time I start from the floor because I just like it. My hands are shoulder-width apart. My feet are slightly turned out, and my legs are in a normal standing position.
When I grab the bar I pull myself into position. I make sure my back is engaged before actually lifting the bar. I push my lats down towards my butt and simultaneously try to pull the bar off the ground, but I don’t actually start trying to deadlift at this point.
I make sure my ankle and knee are completely vertical or slightly bent.
Next, I want my back slightly inclined as I pull myself into position.
Everyone does this differently when I breathe in through my nose, push the air down and feel my abs engage. I also concentrate on pushing my obliques down and out. This process ensures that my core muscles are ready to assist in moving the weight.
When I begin the actual movement, I try to envision pushing my butt towards the corner of the ceiling. This ensures that I am activating my glutes and creating an arch in my lower back to try to help my body utilize the glutes more than the hamstrings when I am pulling the bar up.

Pick the Bar Up & Put the Bar Down

After I get locked into position, I push my feet into the ground and pull the bar upwards. I get to the top of the movement, which is when I can stand up completely with the bar. This is where the real part of the RDL starts if you are pulling from the ground. Starting position doesn’t really matter for this exercise. This is how to perform the movement.

Keeping the bar in the same position at the top of the deadlift, I slowly push my hips backward towards the corner of the ceiling that makes sure my lower back arch is in place, which will engage my glutes as mentioned before.
I go down until I feel a stretch in my hamstring I’ll bring the weight back up to lock out position. I don’t go as low because this might make my hamstrings engage more than my glutes.

This is generally how I start my set of RDLs. If you want a more extensive guide on how to deadlift, read this article by Greg Knuckles

Cues you remember

Everyone teaches different cues; the most important thing to remember is to execute the cues that mostly resonate with you. So for when I do RDL, I always do them starting from the ground.

My favorite cues for glute focused RDL

I do RDL a certain way to target my glutes more effectively. Deadlifts are the type of exercises that you can unga bunga the weight like a caveman. If you are trying to use the RDL for muscle size, then you want the movement to hit the same muscle tissue that you are trying to grow. If you are just pulling the weight up without focusing on technique, then you might be training different muscle tissue altogether. So it’s important to use a moderate amount so that you can still focus on the movement without compromising your form.

Now I will explain the best I can, how I approach my RDL.

Off the ground [For people who want to pull the bar off the floor]

Before I pull the bar off the ground I get my body into position. My 1st cue starts at the floor I use the bar to pull myself into position. This works best if you have a decent amount of weight on the bar. If you try this with light weight, the bar will just come off the floor. If the bar is floating, you are doing the right thing.

Hip, Knee, & Ankles

The position of your knee, ankles, and hips is the most important thing you should be concerned about. I’ll start with your ankle. You virtually don’t want any bend in your ankles because this will cause your knee to shoot forward and take the weight off your glutes and put it more towards your hamstrings and a little bit of your quads. For this cue, push your ankle and knee slightly back at the starting position of the deadlift, and do the same during the lowering part of the rep.

For your hips, you want to imagine pushing them towards the corner of the ceiling. So, in the starting and lowering positions, you want to shoot your hips back diagonally. If you want to think in cardinal directions, you are pushing your hips northwest.

Once you lift the bar somewhere near your mid-thigh, you want to push your hips forward and slightly tuck in your glutes to get the full glute engagement.

Should be concerned about a RDL hurting your back

Sometimes when you are lifting pretty heavy, your lower back muscles take over in the lift.

Is it a bad thing? Maybe

Can you get injured? Maybe

But you’ll only get injured if you do exercises that your lower back isn’t prepared for. For example, if you start doing max deadlifts and you just learned how to do them last week. Then you might have a higher chance of getting injured.

The way I prep to keep my lower back resilient is by doing exercises that load it in different positions. I do back extensions at full range of motion. This works my glutes and also keeps my lower back resilient. I also do lateral rotation and side bends to stretch my muscle fibers in different angles. I do all these with progressive overload slowly getting them stronger over time. This will bulletproof your back and reduce the chances of heavy loads injuring you.

This is the equipment you'll need for an RDL

Straps are your best friend!

Get used to them. Your grip will always be a limiting factor. Hinge movement uses the biggest and strongest muscles in your body; that’s just the nature of them. I can do grip exercises to increase my strength. But I don’t compete in powerlifting or play in a sport that involves my grip now, so it really doesn’t matter to me or my goals.

In exercise, I think if you want to improve a certain aspect of your fitness, it’s best to train it separately. Working with multiple factors should be reserved for sports or daily life activities. It seems that working on multiple fitness goals at once is not the most effective way to grow. Especially when you are short on time. If you are trying to save and train everything at the same time. You could do supersets, which involve doing different exercises right after one another. I would do exercises that don’t affect each other. Like doing leg curls and dumbbell bench press together. The downside to these are if you train in a commercial gym it’s impossible to do these without being an asshole. You just take up so much and get in everyone else’s way.

Other gym equipment is like different bars like a hex bar which I hate, and a deadlift bar which is longer and designed to bend to make the movement more efficient.

Pick equipment that helps achieve your goals and don’t worry about what others think.

Different RDL variations you can add in

There are many different RDLs you can add to your training. You should choose the ones that best work for your body type.

Elevated RDL where you stand on plates or some kind of elevated surface. If you are using standard 25kg/45 plates, they touch the ground when you go past your knee in an RDL. For this movement you want the bar floating when you are performing the reps. For more flexible or shorter people, they may need more elevation. Using a platform helps you get deeper into the movement to load as many muscle fibers as you can so they grow. And also using a greater ROM(range of motion) it increase your flexibility. The only way you lose mobility and flexibility is if you are too Jacked. You’ll definitely be jacked from doing all these RDLs so you should definitely start working on your flexibility. I started doing static stretching by 3x 30 sec 3 days per week holding different positions to increase my flexibility so I can get into different positions for my strength training.

Frequently Asked Romanian Deadlift-Related Questions

How many times a week should I do RDL?

At least once a week is good enough. RDLs are most effective when you use a heavy amount of weight. This will probably be the heaviest exercise in your program. Meaning not only will your back, glutes, and hamstrings be fatigued, but also your central nervous system. This means your body will be exhausted overall, and you will not be able to lift at your best without rest.

Should I do RDLs at the beginning or the end of the workout?

Depends if you are building up your strength; then perform them at the beginning of your workout. If this exercise tires you out too much and makes you want to go home, then do it at the end.

Can a beginner do Romanian deadlifts?

100%, but I would start out learning how to pull the bar off the floor first. Learn how to deadlift properly for your body type. Everyone’s deadlift may look slightly different. Your deadlift won’t look perfect at the beginning. It is a skill you need to practice. The movement looks good before it starts. Don’t worry about getting hurt lifting weights is one of the safest forms of exercise you can do. You’ll only get hurt if you lift more than your muscle and tendon tissue can handle. Your spine is made to bend; don’t be soft and make your back your strength at wide ranges of motion. You’ll thank me later.

Add in Romain deadlifts to build the biggest glutes you can

RDL is a great movement to add to your training. It makes you stronger and a better builder overall. The downside to them are they require some skill to load the targeted muscle properly. And it’s hard to gauge what muscles are actually working.