Thread: Trying to perfect RDL's

Two tips -

1.) Try to bend your knees as little as possible throughout the ROM (of course, there should be a slight break in the knee). This technique places more stress on the hamstrings and let on the glutes.

2.) Concentrate on pushing your hips back as far as you can while keeping your chest and shoulders pronounced. This will stretch your hamstrings further.

Even if you don't "feel them", they definitely are being trained. I've done some wicked sets of RDL's and won't "feel" them much in the hamstrings, but they will get incredibly sore the next few days, so you know they are being recruited. You hamstrings have a very large capacity to do work compared to other muscles, it takes longer for them to feel fatigued.

You could also do some activation work beforehand, like a quick set of reverse hyper-extensions or something similar.

Originally Posted by fufu

Two tips -

1.) Try to bend your knees as little as possible throughout the ROM (of course, there should be a slight break in the knee). This technique places more stress on the hamstrings and let on the glutes.

2.) Concentrate on pushing your hips back as far as you can while keeping your chest and shoulders pronounced. This will stretch your hamstrings further.

Even if you don't "feel them", they definitely are being trained. I've done some wicked sets of RDL's and won't "feel" them much in the hamstrings, but they will get incredibly sore the next few days, so you know they are being recruited. You hamstrings have a very large capacity to do work compared to other muscles, it takes longer for them to feel fatigued.

You could also do some activation work beforehand, like a quick set of reverse hyper-extensions or something similar.

cheers fufu good advice

Originally Posted by fufu

Two tips -

1.) Try to bend your knees as little as possible throughout the ROM (of course, there should be a slight break in the knee). This technique places more stress on the hamstrings and let on the glutes.

2.) Concentrate on pushing your hips back as far as you can while keeping your chest and shoulders pronounced. This will stretch your hamstrings further.

Even if you don't "feel them", they definitely are being trained. I've done some wicked sets of RDL's and won't "feel" them much in the hamstrings, but they will get incredibly sore the next few days, so you know they are being recruited. You hamstrings have a very large capacity to do work compared to other muscles, it takes longer for them to feel fatigued.


Thanks for the info man, certainly going to try and put it to use on legs day tomorrow =)

You could also do some activation work beforehand, like a quick set of reverse hyper-extensions or something similar.

no problemo, good luck.

If you need to feel this to activate it before you lift, try this:

Stand next to the cage, with your toes touching the leg of the support on the floor. Hold the support, bend your knees slightly and lean your ass back while you creep your hands down the support. Reach your ass around behind you until you feel the hamstring stretch. That's the feeling you want to mimic while performing the RDL.

To perform the lift - look at yourself in the mirror, arch your back - think "baboon breeding position" - ass out, chest out. Strong arch.

Lean your ass back as if to sit in a chair.

The barbell should travel in a path straight up and down.

You should feel the weight pushing through your heels - in fact, you should be able to lift your toes off the floor at the bottom of the lift.

SHOVE THE BARBELL INTO YOUR BODY - both directions, the barbell should be in contact with your body. Activate your delts to do this. It's a deliberate part of the lift, and will force you to get over the barbell properly.

Every time I start to be able to RDL good numbers, the tendons in the back of my knee start to aggravate me. Am I doing something wrong or is this another case of my connective tissues failing on me?