Deadlift form: learn the hinge, then pick your bar

A deadlift is lifting a weight from the floor by bending at the hips, and its cousins, the trap bar deadlift and the Romanian deadlift, are variations on the same movement: the hip hinge. Get the hinge right and the rest is choosing where the weight sits. This page covers the hinge first, then the conventional deadlift, the trap bar and the Romanian deadlift (RDL), how to choose between them, and the faults that show up as the weight climbs.

The deadlift's partner is the squat, and squat form covers it the same way.

Hinge first

A hinge bends mainly at the hips; a squat bends the hips and knees together. A 2022 study of deadlift variations sorts them the same way: in the conventional and sumo deadlifts the knees bend and straighten like a squat, while in the Romanian and stiff-leg deadlifts the knee angle stays about the same through the rep. The Romanian is done with the knees slightly bent, the stiff-leg with them straight.¹ Learn the movement before you load it:

1. Stand tall, feet about hip-width apart, knees slightly bent.
2. Push your hips straight back, as if closing a door behind you with them, and let your chest come forward as your hands slide down your thighs. Keep your back straight; the lifters in that 2022 study were told to keep the spine straight as they reached toward the floor.¹
3. Stop when the backs of your thighs are fully stretched, often somewhere between your knees and mid-shin.
4. Stand back up by driving your hips forward until you're standing tall. Squeeze your glutes at the top, without leaning back.

Practice it with a broomstick held along your back, touching your head, upper back and tailbone, or with a pair of light dumbbells, which makes it a Romanian deadlift. Once the hinge feels automatic, add weight.

What a deadlift trains

Legs, hips and back together. A 2020 systematic review of 19 studies of muscle activity in the deadlift and its variants, in people aged 18 to 34 with at least six months of lifting, found the quadriceps and the back muscles more active than the glutes and hamstrings in the deadlift, while the Romanian deadlift worked the hamstrings harder than the back muscles.²

Activity during a lift isn't the same as growth over weeks, but a training study points the same way. In a nine-week trial, 36 people new to lifting did stiff-leg deadlifts or Nordic hamstring curls three times a week, or no training, and both exercises grew the hamstrings, by about 7% with the stiff-leg deadlift.³ Squats, by comparison, didn't grow the hamstrings in a ten-week trial of 17 men.⁴ That's the case for a hinge in your week.

The conventional deadlift, step by step

1. Bar over the middle of your foot. Feet about hip-width apart, toes forward or turned out a little, shins about an inch from the bar.
2. Hinge down and grip the bar with your hands just outside your legs, arms straight.
3. Bend your knees until your shins touch the bar. Your hips end up higher than your knees and lower than your shoulders.
4. Set your back and brace. Chest up, back straight, a big breath held in your midsection. Pull the slack out of the bar so it's tight before it leaves the floor.
5. Push the floor away. The bar travels straight up, close to your legs the whole way, with your hips and shoulders rising together.
6. Finish tall: hips through, standing straight, no leaning back.
7. Lower it the same way: hips back first until the bar passes your knees, then bend the knees. Each rep starts from the floor.

The trap bar (hex bar) deadlift

A trap bar is a hexagonal frame you stand inside, with handles at your sides instead of a bar in front of your shins. Three studies in experienced lifters compared it with the straight bar:

• In 19 male powerlifters, the trap bar allowed a one-rep max about 8% heavier, produced more force, speed and power across the loads tested, and shifted the load away from the hips and toward the knees.⁵
• In 11 men practiced at both lifts, the trap bar max was about 6% heavier, and heavy single reps moved about 15% faster.⁶
• In 20 men with deadlift experience, the one-rep maxes did not differ, but the trap bar worked the front of the thigh harder, and the straight bar worked the hamstrings harder (a result from this one muscle-activity study) and the back muscles harder only on the lowering phase.⁷

Read together: the trap bar is a more knee-driven version of the lift that often allows heavier, faster pulls, while, in one study, the straight bar put more of the work on the hamstrings. Neither is the "real" deadlift. The setup is the same as above, except you stand in the middle of the frame and grip the handles.

The Romanian deadlift (RDL)

In the gym, an RDL usually starts standing: you deadlift or unrack the bar once, then each rep is the hinge from above, the bar sliding down your thighs with your knees slightly bent, lowered only as far as your hamstrings allow before you stand back up. It's the hamstring version of the deadlift:

• In a comparison of four hamstring exercises in 12 weight-trained men, hamstring activity was highest in the RDL and the glute-ham raise, ahead of the leg curl and the good morning.⁸
• In ten competitive bodybuilders with about ten years of training, the RDL worked one of the hamstrings (the semitendinosus) more than the stiff-leg deadlift did on the way up, while the stiff-leg version worked the glutes more. The lifters started each RDL rep from the floor, unlike the standing start above.¹

With dumbbells it's the same movement, which makes it the deadlift for a home setup: the three-day dumbbell plan uses a two-dumbbell RDL and a single-leg version.

Which deadlift to do

A week usually needs one hinge, not all three. Pick the one your gym has and you can do well. If you have both a barbell and time for two lower-body days, a common pattern is a heavier deadlift or trap bar day and RDLs as the second hinge later in the week.

How heavy, and when to stop a set

Start lighter than you think and add weight in small jumps. (Progressive overload, explained simply.) Heavy deadlifts are where it pays to stay conservative: keep two or three reps in reserve. (Here's how to judge reps left.) A 2025 review of 22 studies in experienced lifters found that heavier loads were consistently linked to a slower bar and more variable joint movement across the squat, bench press and deadlift, though only two of those studies looked at the deadlift.⁹ In that review heavier loads went with a slower bar and more variable joint movement, so aim to keep the last reps of a heavy set as clean as the first.

Common faults

• The bar drifting away from your legs. Start with it over the middle of your foot and keep it close all the way up.
• Hips shooting up first. The legs straighten and the back does the lifting. Push the floor away so your hips and shoulders rise together, and lighten the load if it keeps happening.
• Yanking the bar off the floor. Pull the slack out first, then push.
• Squatting the RDL. Bending your knees more and more on the way down turns it into a different lift. Knees slightly bent and steady; hips back.
• Losing the position you set. If your back can't stay straight through the rep, the weight is ahead of you. Go lighter and film a set from the side.
• Leaning back at the top. Finish by standing tall with your glutes tight.
• Lifting through pain. Pain in your back or anywhere else is a reason to stop. See a doctor or a physical therapist.

Sore after your first RDLs? Muscle soreness covers whether to train through it.

If you'd rather not plan it alone

A page can describe the hinge. Deciding which deadlift fits your gym and your week, and how heavy each session should be, is the part it can't do. Coaching is the version where your workouts live in the Trainerize app, built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one. Coaching to build muscle explains how that works, and here's how to apply. Otherwise: practice the hinge with a broomstick this week, then do your first RDLs light.