Whole Body · Barbell
Romanian Deadlift
The Romanian deadlift is a barbell hip-hinge movement in which the lifter lowers a bar down the front of the legs by pushing the hips back, keeping the knees only slightly bent, and then stands back up.
Also called Straight Leg Deadlift. orcatrain matches these names when you search the movement catalogue.
How is the Romanian deadlift performed?
Starting from standing with the bar at arm’s length against the thighs, the lifter pushes the hips backward and lets the bar travel down the front of the legs, keeping the knees only slightly bent and the back flat. The bar is lowered until the hips can go no further back without the back rounding — for most people somewhere between the knee and mid-shin — then the lifter drives the hips forward to stand up. Unlike a conventional deadlift, the bar does not start or finish on the floor.
What does the Romanian deadlift train?
The Romanian deadlift trains the hip hinge and loads the hamstrings and glutes through a long stretch, with the spinal erectors working to hold a flat back. It is the standard posterior-chain accessory to the conventional deadlift: same hinge pattern, no floor reset, and a range determined by hamstring flexibility rather than by where the plates sit.
How does orcatrain score the Romanian deadlift?
Scored on its own as an orcatrain strength score, computed with the DOTS coefficient. It is not summed into the headline total, which uses the conventional deadlift. Since the depth you can reach determines the load, keeping the range consistent is what makes the logged history comparable.
Every scored set is turned into an estimated one-rep max, and that estimate is scored with the DOTS coefficient against your bodyweight and sex — so a set is comparable with your own past work and with lifters of a different size. Sets above ten repetitions are recorded but not scored: the estimate is a curve fit that stops being honest past that point, so orcatrain returns nothing rather than a confident guess. Weights are stored in kilograms.
Track your progress on Romanian Deadlift.
Movement names and groupings come from Strength Level, where you can also see their strength standards for this movement. DOTS is computed by orcatrain itself.