Exercise:

Romanian Dumbbell Deadlift

Target Muscle:

Hamstrings

Dumbbells

Stand with your feet hip width apart and hold a pair of dumbbells just outside of your legs. Keep your feet pointing straight ahead with your weight on your heels and a slight bend in your knees.

Keep your chest up, shoulders back, and chin tucked with your neck in a neutral alignment.

To start the movement, focus on pushing your hips back while maintaining a slight arch in your lower back. Extend your hips forward until you feel a good stretch in your hamstrings. Once you feel that stretch, pull the weight back up by pushing your hips forward.

Squeeze your glutes and hamstrings at the top of the movement, and then repeat.

- If you’ve never performed this exercise before, you’ll want to start off with lighter weights and simply focus on proper technique before increasing the load in order to prevent stressing your lower back.

- How far you bend forward will depend on your individual flexibility. Everyone is different here, so just lower the dumbbells down until you feel a good stretch in your hamstrings before pulling the weights back up.

- If you’re mostly feeling your lower back working, then you need to continue practicing your form until you’re able to effectively target the hamstrings. This is an exercise that does require some practice at first.