Negative Article about Romanian Deadlift

[Andy C.]

Coach Rippetoe,

I imagine that you think highly of Bud Charniga, since there is a picture of him in your book Practical Programming. However, he doesn't seem to think that the Romanian Deadlift is particularly effective, at least with regards to Olympic Weightlifting.

Obviously you think the Romanian Deadlift is a good assistance exercise, otherwise you wouldn't recommend it. I was just wondering if you could comment upon Mr. Charniga's criticisms. I always enjoy hearing opposing viewpoints, especially if they're detailed.

Thanks for your time.

BTW, here's the article I'm referring to:

http://www.biggerfasterstronger.com/...anDeadlift.pdf

[Mark Rippetoe]

Want to stir the pot, eh? Bud has been a better lifter than me for a long time. He is a great translator of the Russian sports literature. But he once told me that the calves were the most important muscles in Olympic weightlifting.

Several things here are worth noting:
"First, it teaches you to move your trunk in isolation to your legs -- to use your back too much." Charniga says this is also a problem with performing exercises such as power cleans from the hang, an exercise that he discourages any athlete from performing.

How exactly does one move one's trunk in isolation from one's legs, since the hamstrings are a hip extensor and the back is held in isometric contraction, meaning that the posterior leg muscles extend the trunk?

And this: "The Romanian deadlift is trying to simulate Olympic lifting, but the fact is its only a fraction of a second that your hip extensors are on their own during a pull..."

is odd, because Olympic lifting is done from the floor up while RDLs are done from the top down, and the hip extensors are never "on their own" during either an RDL or a clean.

This is again an odd idea: "In other words, when you reach a point when you lift a weight to above knee level in the snatch or the clean, there's an instant where your legs are almost straight and your back is pretty much on its own."

Bud thinks that the back is somehow able to maintain it's angle without the hip extensors holding it there at their attachments on the pelvis. I guess. Maybe I'm wrong in this interpretation. But here again:

"At this point your knees automatically shift forward so that your legs and your trunk together can straighten your body. In a Romanian deadlift, you're doing something where you're moving your trunk in isolation, your legs stay still, and as a result it has a negative transfer to the pull. In weightlifting you're trying to use your legs throughout the whole movement, rather than passively using your legs as is done during a Romanian deadlift."

Because your quads are not opening your knee angle, you're using your legs "passively"? The hamstrings are not leg muscles? The hamstrings do not work to actively extend the trunk? Bud is apparently saying here that the back muscles move the back.

But this is the weirdest thing of all: "This exercise has nowhere near the coordination structure of a snatch or clean, and as such I would strongly discourage any lifter from performing it."

Bud doesn't want Olympic lifters to squat? Or press? Or front squat? Or do any other basic strength work? He just wants them to snatch and Clean & Jerk? Well, okay. He knows more about this than I do. I don't think that the RDL is the best exercise in the world, but it is certainly useful as an assistance exercise for lots of people that need hamstring strength, and if you're not strong already, how do you plan to get that way without strength work?

But with this: "Charniga believes that one of the problems with American strength coaches, especially those who work with football players, is that they often try to take the easy way out and just copy what the best athletes are doing. One example is the recent success of the Chinese lifters, who often perform a great variety of exercises, including several types of pulls.Our coaches don't take the time to ask, Are the Chinese weightlifters doing so well because they perform so many exercises or in spite of the fact they perform so many exercises?"

...I couldn't agree more.

[killyouintheface]

Early this year after I started lifting, when I was still too weak to do any traditional deadlifting from the floor, I learned about Romanian deadlifting, and decided to throw it in with the rest of the work I was doing to see if it would help me any in rehabbing my hamstrings.

Once I figured out how to do it correctly, it quickly became one of my most used and well-liked lifts. I do it every Saturday, along with the rest of my leg-specific work that I do for rehab, and nothing that I'm currently able to do hits my hamstrings and ass and adductors as hard as this lift; and I don't think I'm speaking in hyperbole to say that if i hadn't started training with it, I wouldn't be able to do traditional floor pulls or even the wussy air squats that I'm doing now.

Rip's right in saying that it's only an assistance exercise. It shouldn't be a focus of anybody's program to the detriment of the big three or four that he writes about in his books; but in some cases it can make a world of difference.

Hell of an exercise, as far as I'm concerned.

Also:

Check out how much layback Vasiliy Alexeyev has going on in the picture on page 3 of that article. If that's how the Russians press, no wonder they "believed that additional exercises for the lower back would be necessary".

lol

[Andy C.]

Thanks for the response. I appreciate it.

BTW, I suppose my post could be construed as stirring the pot, but that wasn't my intention. I just like to hear both sides of an argument.

[Brandon Oto]

I believe Charniga is referring to the hip extensors as "trunk" or "back" and the knee extensors as "legs." This is something I've seen a bunch of and it's rather annoyingly sloppy anatomy, although I guess I get the logic: they're talking about what's "being moved" when you're initiating a ground-up movement, which for hip extension is the torso and for knee extension is the upper leg.

See the common workplace prescription: "lift with your legs, not your back!"

[rocko]

Mark:
Who would most benefit from doing Romanian Deadlits as an assistance exercise?

[Mark Rippetoe]

People who cannot do them well (duh?). These people do not understand the use of the posterior chain and cannot make it engage, and as a result it will usually be weak.