RDL's are better than deadlifts. Everyone calls the deadlift the "king of lifts," but if we’re being honest — the RDL does everything the deadlift does, and more.

It builds just as much strength, it builds more muscle, it carries over better to sport and athleticism, and it doesn’t destroy your recovery in nearly the same way. This makes RDL's the superior, consistent training lift, and as such, they, along with other pure hinges, should be the primary foundation of your posterior chain training.

The RDL (Romanian Deadlift) and the conventional deadlift look somewhat similar at first glance and do have a lot in common, but there are some pretty important differences as well that drastically alter intent, execution, and outcome.

The RDL lengthens the hamstrings and glutes eccentrically under load. There’s no deload at the bottom of the movement. You control the eccentric phase all the way through, stop just shy of the floor or tops of the feet, and maintain tension through the posterior chain the entire time. There is minimal knee bend and as such, it is a pure hinge that builds posterior chain resilience, hamstring mobility, and end range strength.

This eccentric bias contributes to greater muscular hypertrophy while also having greater transfer into movement capacity and overall athleticism. As such, pure hinges, like variations of the RDL, the good morning, and even the hyperextension should be the cornerstone of any program that seeks to maximize posterior chain strength, resilience, and overall functionality.

And just to be clear: the RDL isn’t the only pure hinge in the toolbox. Variations of good mornings, hyperextensions (back raises), and even stiff leg deadlifts (although to a lesser extent) also live in this same family. They’re primarily eccentric biased hinges that load the hamstrings and glutes through massive ranges of motion, and they should be rotated in and out of your programming just like you would with variations of the squat, press, or row. The core principle here is simple: pure hinges should be the foundation of posterior chain development, not a secondary or tertiary afterthought.

The deadlift, on the other hand, starts from a dead stop. You’re relying heavily on starting strength — pulling each from a dead stop on the floor, deloading the bar every time, and fully overcoming inertia on every single rep. To achieve this, and get the bar driving off the floor, the quads are used to the fullest extent that they are able to be used based on the lifter's anthropometry within the context of maintaining optimal mechanical efficiency.

More muscle is used, the posterior chain is de-emphasized, the lift is concentric biased, the stretch shortening cycle is eliminated, and starting strength is paramount.

And with all of that, the deadlift is brutally fatiguing. Somewhere between the intense concentric only nature, the greater absolute loading, the massive spinal stress, and even the grip fatigue, any strong lifter will tell you the deadlift is one of the hardest lifts to recover from — it simply fries you in a way that no other lift does.

The Romanian Deadlift hits the same prime movers — the glutes, hamstrings, and erectors — but without the same crippling systemic fatigue. You can train it and other pure hinges harder, more often, and with greater consistency and less volatility. It’s simply less fickle and more predictable. 

You get all the strength, plus more hypertrophy — without the fatigue cost — and the loaded eccentric stretch of the glutes and hamstrings makes it much more useful for athletes. It’s optimal strength stimulus without the training hangover.

And, just to acknowledge a point that always gets brought up: yes, the spinal erectors likely work harder in a conventional deadlift compared to an RDL. The reason is simple: you’re overcoming inertia from a dead stop against greater absolute loading.

But harder doesn’t automatically mean better, especially when talking about the spine and how its associated muscles can lead to disproportionate systemic fatigue. The deadlift hammers the erectors in a way that means more fatigue, less repeatability, and less volume tolerance. The RDL, on the other hand, lets you train the erectors, and the entire posterior chain, with more volume and a far better stimulus-to-fatigue.

The reduced loading coupled with an unbroken eccentric-concentric chain, simply allows you to get more out of less weight. The positive stimulus is the same, but the negative stimulus is reduced. The RDL is simply easier to recover from.

From a muscle growth standpoint, the RDL also dominates. You get massive muscular tension across the entire range of motion of the movement. The hamstrings and glutes are stretched under load, the eccentric phase is biased much more heavily, and the unbroken eccentric-concentric chain allows the concentric phase to benefit heavily from the stretch shortening cycle, leading to smoother outputs.

These characteristics are massive contributors to muscular hypertrophy in the posterior chain prime movers — the mechanical tension and loaded stretch into the pure hinge are simply unmatched in this regard.

With it's superior consistency, lower volatility, greater transfer to athletic movement, enhanced hypertrophy, and massive strength stimulus, the RDL is simply a more reliable training lift to use as a primary cornerstone for posterior chain gains a greater proportion of the time.

In terms of athleticism and movement capacity carryover, the RDL really shines most brightly. When you sprint, jump, or change direction, your hamstrings are doing exactly what they do in the RDL: absorbing and releasing force. The eccentric control that you gain — the ability to store and release elastic energy — that is one of the primary cornerstones of athleticism. You are quite  literally training your glutes and hamstrings to act like loaded springs ready to release monstrous elastic forces. The deadlift teaches you how to produce force from a static position. The RDL teaches you how to handle force dynamically. That’s why it translates better to sport.

Further, because the RDL and the other pure hinges teach you how to stretch your hamstrings to their maximum length under load, and enhance that stretch slowly over time, they build greater end range strength as well. This end range strength contributes to the posterior chain bulletproofing effect, reducing the likelihood of hamstring strains from various activities while also promoting enhanced mobility.

And to be clear, none of this is me saying you should never deadlift. The deadlift is a phenomenal test of strength, and it absolutely has a long term place in a well-rounded program. But it shouldn’t necessarily be the centerpiece we typically treat it as.

Pure hinges are the superior long term builder, so emphasize them accordingly. Push them hard, own the eccentric, lengthen the eccentric, and watch your strength, muscle mass, sprinting speed, jumping, mobility, and overall athleticism skyrocket.