How to hinge: learning the Romanian deadlift

Published 30 September 2026 by TRACK AI Coach

Picking a box up from the floor, closing a car door with your hip, leaning over a sink: all of them use a hip hinge. The Romanian deadlift (RDL) trains that pattern with weight, and it’s one of the best exercises for your hamstrings, your glutes and the muscles along your spine. It’s also often misunderstood, because it looks a bit like a squat. It isn’t one.

Hinge versus squat

In a squat, your hips and knees bend together and your hips travel down. In a hinge, your hips travel back while your knees keep a soft, fixed bend, and your chest tips forward as a result. If your knees keep bending as you go down, you’re squatting the weight, and your thighs take over from your hamstrings.

How to do it

1. Stand tall holding dumbbells or a backpack in front of your thighs, feet hip-width apart.
2. Unlock your knees slightly. That bend stays the same for the whole rep.
3. Push your hips back as if you were closing a door behind you with your bottom. The weights slide down close to your legs.
4. Keep your back flat and your chest proud. Go down until you feel a strong stretch in your hamstrings, usually with the weights around knee height or a little lower.
5. Drive your hips forward to stand tall, squeezing your glutes at the top. Don’t lean back.

Keeping your back flat

The most important rule of the RDL is that your back stays in the same neutral position from top to bottom. Your range ends where your back would start to round, not where the weights touch the floor. For most people that’s somewhere between just below the knee and mid-shin. That’s normal, and it grows as your hamstrings get used to the stretch.

Three drills to learn the hinge

1. Wall touch. Stand about a foot’s length in front of a wall, facing away from it. Push your hips back to touch the wall, then stand up. Move a little further away as it gets easier.
2. Broomstick hinge. Hold a broomstick along your back so it touches your head, upper back and tailbone. Hinge forward while keeping all three points in contact.
3. Hands-on-hips hinge. Put your hands in the crease of your hips and push them back as you bend forward. You should feel your hips fold.

Common mistakes

• Bending forward instead of back. The first move is your hips going back, not your chest going down.
• Rounding your back to reach lower. Stop where your back stays flat.
• Squatting the weight, with your knees bending more and more.
• Not finishing tall. Stand fully upright at the top, with your hips through.
• Dropping into the bottom. Take about two seconds to lower; the stretch is where much of the work happens.

Sets, reps and weight

Start light, with a backpack or a pair of dumbbells, and do 3 sets of 10 to 12 slow reps. Your hamstrings will probably feel it the next day, especially the first time. Add weight gradually, and only while your back stays flat on every rep.

What the coach checks

Side-on at hip height, the TRACK AI coach can see your hinge. It calls out “Back rounding” and “Squatting it” from that view, “Hips not going back” when you bend forward instead of back, and “Not hinging far enough”, “Not finishing tall” or “Lowering too fast” when the range or tempo is off.

Read the Romanian deadlift guide for step-by-step technique and easier and harder versions. If you have back pain, check with a physiotherapist or doctor before you load this movement.

Keep reading

• Leaning back in the shoulder press? How to press straight up
• Stop swinging your bicep curls: how to curl with strict form
• How long should you hold a plank?
• How to set up your phone for AI form tracking