Single-leg Romanian deadlift: one foot down, hips square, the same hinge

The single-leg Romanian deadlift is a hip hinge on one leg. You stand on one foot, keep that knee softly bent, and tip your body forward from the hip while your free leg reaches straight back, until your body is close to level with the floor. Then you stand back up by driving the hip of the planted leg forward. The weight hangs from your hand the whole time.

This page covers the steps, which hand to hold the weight in, what the studies measured, the dumbbell, kettlebell and bodyweight versions, a stepping stone for learning it, the faults, and the sets. The two-leg lift, how low to go and the barbell setup are on the Romanian deadlift; why train one leg at a time at all is on unilateral exercises.

How to do a single-leg Romanian deadlift

1. Stand on your working leg, knee softly bent, a dumbbell in the opposite hand hanging in front of your thigh. Your free hand can hold a bench, a rack or a wall while you learn.
2. Hinge. Push your hips back and tip your chest forward while your free leg reaches straight back behind you, as if your body and that leg were one board pivoting on the hip.
3. Keep your hips square. Both hip bones point at the floor. The free leg's toes point down, not out to the side.
4. Lower the weight close to your standing leg until you feel a stretch in the back of that thigh, usually with your body close to level with the floor. Keep your back flat.
5. Stand up by driving the hip of the standing leg forward and squeezing that glute, bringing the free leg back under you.
6. Do all your reps on one side, then switch, starting each set with the weaker side.

The standing knee stays bent by about the same amount the whole time. If it straightens as you hinge, or bends more, the lift turns into something else.

Single-leg RDL muscles worked

• Against the two-leg deadlift. In 15 training-experienced men, the single-leg deadlift worked the gluteus medius, the side glute, harder than the conventional deadlift (77.6% against 59.3% of a maximal contraction) and the biceps femoris, one of the hamstrings, a little harder (82.1% against 74.2%), while one side of the lower-back muscles worked less.¹
• Against other one-leg exercises. In 14 female footballers aged 18 to 32 with at least three months of lower-body strength training, a computer model built from motion and muscle-activity recordings ranked the loaded single-leg Romanian deadlift in the top group of eight hip exercises for the forces in all three glutes: the big glute, the side glute and the small glute beneath it.²
• Very high activity in trained men. In 12 men with at least two years of strength training, the upper part of the big glute and the biceps femoris worked at very high levels in every version tested, 105 to 169% and 70 to 122% of a maximal contraction.³

So the lift trains what the two-leg Romanian deadlift trains, the hamstrings and the glutes, with more for the side glute, which has to hold your hips level over one foot.

Which hand holds the weight

The usual cue is the hand opposite the standing leg, and one study tested it. In the 12 trained men above, holding the dumbbell on the opposite side raised activity in the upper part of the big glute and in the side glute, compared with holding it on the standing leg's side.³ A dumbbell in each hand is the other option, and it lets you hold more weight in total.

Dumbbell, kettlebell or bodyweight

• Dumbbell. The version in the steps above, one in the opposite hand or one in each.
• Kettlebell. The same lift; the handle sits a little higher, so the bell hangs closer to your shin. (Swung fast on two legs, the same hinge is the kettlebell swing.) No study comparing it with the dumbbell version turned up in a PubMed search for this page.
• Bodyweight. The place to learn the hinge on one leg. Adding load raises the work: in the footballers above, a weight they could lift 12 times raised the estimated peak glute forces by 28 to 150 newtons across the exercises, compared with body weight alone.² Once ten clean bodyweight reps a side are easy, pick up a weight.

Stand on the floor, not on a pad

The single-leg RDL is unsteady enough on flat ground. In 30 healthy men, doing it on a foam pad raised sway at the ankle by 80% on the way down and about 100% on the way up, and cut the range at the hip by about 6 degrees and at the knee by about 4, while glute and hamstring activity rose in parts of the lift.⁴ The authors note that the smaller range may cost some of the loading a strength exercise needs, so keep your foot on the floor.

If you wobble on the floor too, use a kickstand stance: the back foot's toes resting lightly on the floor a step behind you, most of your weight on the front leg. It's a stepping stone, not the lift; move to a free leg once the hinge feels steady. Holding a bench with your free hand does the same job.

Does one leg beat two?

Not for muscle. A 2025 meta-analysis of nine studies found no significant difference in muscle growth between one-limb and two-limb training, while strength rose most in whichever version was trained.⁵ So the single-leg version earns its place by what it adds: each leg works alone, the side glute works harder, and it loads the hinge with far less weight, which helps when your heaviest dumbbell is light. If a heavy two-leg hinge is your main lift, the single-leg RDL follows it, not replaces it.

The common faults, and a fix for each

• Opening the hips. The free leg's hip rolls up toward the ceiling and the toes turn out. Point the back toes at the floor and keep both hip bones level.
• Squatting it. The standing knee bends more and more as you go down. Keep the same soft bend and move at the hip.
• Reaching the weight forward. Keep it close to the standing leg, like a two-leg RDL keeps the bar close.
• Rounding to go lower. Stop where your hamstring stops you with a flat back. The range comes from the hip.
• Rushing. Slow the way down to two or three seconds, and pause for a moment at the bottom before you stand.
• Lifting through something that hurts. A stretch in the hamstring is normal; a sharp or lasting hurt in the back of the thigh or the lower back isn't. Stop, and see a doctor or a physical therapist.

Sets, reps and where it goes

• Two or three sets of 8 to 12 a side, stopping with a rep or two left. (How to judge reps left.) The American College of Sports Medicine's 2026 position stand, which covers healthy adults, advises at least two sets per exercise.⁶
• After your main lift. A squat or a two-leg hinge goes first; the single-leg RDL follows on the same day or a lighter one.
• Count it as hamstring and glute work. Its sets count toward the same weekly total as your Romanian deadlifts and hamstring work, not on top of it.
• Progress in this order: bodyweight, then a light weight in the opposite hand, then more reps, then a heavier weight or one in each hand. (Progressive overload covers the options.)

If you'd rather not plan it alone

The single-leg RDL takes a few sessions to steady; deciding whether it's your main hinge or a second one, how it shares a week with your other leg work, and when to add weight is the part a page can't do. Coaching is the version where your workouts are 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: at your next leg session, do two sets of ten a side with a light dumbbell in the opposite hand, and write down the weight.