Romanian deadlift (RDL) - the best posterior chain exercise

I really believe that. It is the best big assistance exercise for your whole posterior chain. Traps, middle back, lats, lower back, abs, glutes, hamstrings.

I found out lots of endurance athletes are quad dominant. They suffer from knee pains, strained hamstrings, lowe back chronic pain. Enter the Romanian deadlift.

Hypers for lower back? GHR for hams? Leg curls for hams? Hip extension machine for glutes? GM for lower and middle back? Nope. You do not need all these exercises, you can get all in one, the Romanian deadlift.


I personally use Romanian DL once a week for volume work. I also pull conventional the same week. Yep, pulling twice a week. I really think it is the bare minimum. With Romanian DL I do 4 heavy sets of 5-8 with roughly 50-65% of may max pull or I do 2 sets of 20 with roughly 40-45% of my max pull. I do the Romanian DL as my last exercise of the day because I am tired as hell after. The 4 set of 8 are heavy and taxing but those 2 sets of 20 are the real treat. You'll be puffing as a locomotive and the next day your hams, glutes, mid back, lats and traps should be fried. But not the lower back. I will explain this later when discussing proper form.







Set-up
Closer than shoulder width stance, shins against the bar, knees slightly bent, no belt, overhand grip. Use straps if you must. Your upper back slightly rounded (yes, it's ok), arms gripping exactly when they fall from shoulders, lower back flat (not arched, not rounded), ass waaaay back.

Pull
Brace your core, pull in air, inflate stomach incl. obliques, pack your shoulders and start pulling by rocking back even more and putting all the pressure on your hams and glutes. Lower back must not round or arch, it must remain flat during the whole pull. You do not pull the bar up, you pull back towards your body. During the whole pull, the bar grazes your shins and thighs. It is your ass that travels backwards. Once above the knees, thrust your hips forward, squeeze your glutes and mid back. The next day your hams, glutes, lats and mid-back should be sore. Your lower back might be tender from doing the static work but never sore. If your lower back is sore, you did it incorrectly. The rotation axis is in your hips, not lower back. You return back the exact same pathway and pause the plates 2-3cm (1 inch) above the ground, wait there 1 sec and pull up again for another rep. Your lats will fight like hell during this pause keeping the bar where it should be and if you do it right, your lats will be sore as hell the next day. I personally think the Romanian DL is the best lat exercise out there. Yes, I just said that.

Romanian deadlifts boost your pull and squat and pack slabs of muscle on your hams, glutes, mid back, upper back, lats. Your whole posterior chain will get stronger. No more low back pain, no more strained hams.

I do not understand why so many people treat it as a fitness exercise using 2 x 10kg plates on each side and going for an exaggerated stretch. C'mon, put some weight on the bar. If you want stronger posterior chain you have to pull heavy. Period.


Now pull some damn weight!

plantar fasciitis and how to fix it

One of the most common injuries among endurance athletes. It really sucks. I had it twice during 3 years. I read lots of athletes' stories how they stop training for many weeks, how they go to massage therapists, etc. and so on.

It is all useless. You have to understand the human body is one huge kinetic chain where all muscles are in coordination and interconnected and our body has lots of tools for compensations. If something does not work the body will find a way to compensate creating overuse and too much stress somewhere else. The evolution equipped us for survival, not athletic performance. So, your body will not care about your 10KM PB but will create too much stress in area B if you have a weakness in area A in order to compensate.

Understanding that, we now can look closer at plantar fasciitis. It usually happens after tons of running and the thick wide fascia in your foot gets painful as hell. It gets painful and inflamed. Why inflamed? Inflammation is a defensive mechanism to protect weak and overused tissue against too much stress and overuse. Your body simply does not want you to contract the tissue forcefully. The pain and inflammation will prohibit you to do that.

So if the fascia is painful; is your foot the problem? Nope. Your inflamed fascia and the pain in your foot is just the symptom, not the cause. The tendon is stressed too much and overworked, it takes too much beating. Why?

Usually because of three problems, very often all of them at the same time:

1/ your gluteus medius is weak = does not stabilize the pelvis properly

2/ your leg goes into inner rotation destroying the ideal biomechanic pattern of your run (read = weak and tight glutes and weak and tight adductors)

3/ your calves are tight and weak

Because all of the above, the fascia in your foot must do the job of the weak muscles with stabilizing the foot arch. If not, the foot arch gets a bit lower and the amortization function of the foot is worse.

What to do? Yes, you can roll the foot with a lacrosse ball but it will only help a little and not solve the problem. Strengthen your glutes, strengthen your adductors, strengthen and stretch your calves. 

Quite often, strength training is the correct answer :)