How to do it
- Stand tall holding dumbbells in front of your thighs with soft knees.
- Push the hips straight back and lower the weights along your legs until you feel a strong hamstring stretch.
- Drive the hips forward to stand tall, squeezing the glutes.
Cues that matter
- The bar path stays glued to your legs the whole way.
- Stop lowering when the hamstrings run out of stretch, not when the weights reach the floor.
Common mistakes
- Squatting the weight down by bending the knees.
- Rounding the lower back to reach further.
Muscles worked
Primary
- Hamstrings
- All three heads
Also works
- Glutes
- Lower back
Sets and reps
What to do with it depends on what you are training for. These are the ranges MuscleMap uses when it puts Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift in a session, with 150 seconds between sets.
- Strength
- 4–6 reps
- Build muscle
- 6–10 reps
- Endurance
- 12–20 reps
Same muscle, different kit
Movements that train the same part of the hamstrings with different equipment — for a day the dumbbell is taken, or a gym that does not have one.