Deadlift
Single-leg Romanian deadlift
Works
Also works
Equipment
Unilateral (one side at a time)
How to do it
- Stand on one leg with a dumbbell in the opposite hand and a slight bend in the knee.
- Hinge at the hip, sending your torso forward and your free leg straight back.
- Lower the dumbbell close to your leg, keeping a flat back and level hips.
- Feel the hamstring stretch and stop when your torso is parallel to the floor.
- Return by extending the hip and squeezing the glute; finish reps and switch legs.
Common mistakes
- Rotating the hip and opening the pelvis to the side.
- Rounding the back instead of hinging at the hip.
- Bending the knee too much and turning it into a squat.
What the evidence says
Sumo and conventional aren't the same lift with a wider stance: sumo activates the quadriceps (vastus medialis and lateralis) and tibialis anterior more, while conventional activates the medial gastrocnemius more.
Escamilla RF, Francisco AC, Kayes AV, Speer KP, Moorman CT 3rd. «An electromyographic analysis of sumo and conventional style deadlifts». Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 2002;34(4):682-688. View the study
With a hexagonal (trap) bar you lift more weight at higher velocity and power, with lower moments at the lumbar spine, hip and ankle but a higher moment at the knee: it's the pick when you want to load the legs without loading the back as much.
Swinton PA, Stewart A, Agouris I, Keogh JW, Lloyd R. «A biomechanical analysis of straight and hexagonal barbell deadlifts using submaximal loads». Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2011;25(7):2000-2009. View the study
The stiff-leg deadlift doesn't cover the whole hamstring: over 9 weeks it grew the semimembranosus (11%) but barely the semitendinosus, which did grow (24%) with the Nordic curl. If you only hip-hinge, you're missing knee-flexion work.
Morin T, Doguet V, Nordez A, Caillet A, Lacourpaille L. «Minimal Role of Hamstring Hypertrophy in Strength Transfer Between Nordic Hamstring and Stiff-Leg Deadlift: A Blinded Randomized Controlled Trial». Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2025;39(9):924-932. View the study
What isn't settled: There is no study that trains one group with sumo and another with conventional for weeks and compares the muscle and strength gained. Everything we know about that comparison comes from single-rep lab measurements: pick the one you can load and hold well, not because a winner has been measured.
Other variations
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All 340 catalogue exercises are in the app, with their technique and your history. You log the set and Myosin works out volume, records and estimated strength.
