Hip Hinge
Romanian Deadlift Strength Standards
The Romanian deadlift is trained for reps, almost never maxed, and so almost nobody knows what a good one looks like. Enter your bodyweight and this page gives you a beginner to elite scale for the RDL, built directly from the deadlift standards on this site.
Find Your Romanian Deadlift Level
Enter your bodyweight, pick your sex, and put in your best lift. Everything below updates as you type.
What the Romanian Deadlift Really Measures
Hamstring and glute strength through a hinge that never touches the floor.
The Romanian deadlift starts at the top. You unrack or stand up a loaded bar, push the hips back with the knees only slightly bent, let the bar travel down the front of the legs until the hamstrings run out of length, and stand back up. The bar does not return to the floor, the range is set by your flexibility rather than by the plates, and the load is carried by the hamstrings, glutes and the whole length of the spinal erectors holding your back flat.
That makes it a different animal from the conventional deadlift even though it looks like half of one. There is no floor break, no leg drive worth mentioning, and no chance to reset between reps, so the lift is limited by how long your hamstrings can hold tension and how long your grip lasts rather than by peak force off the ground.
Where These Numbers Come From
Seventy percent of your conventional deadlift, flat across all five levels.
Every figure here is 70 percent of the deadlift standard for the same bodyweight and sex. The proportion stays flat because the RDL is essentially the deadlift's top half loaded through a longer eccentric, and lifters who deadlift more tend to Romanian deadlift proportionally more at every level. There is no reason in the mechanics for the ratio to drift the way it does on a machine lift.
Seventy percent is deliberately conservative. Plenty of strong lifters can hold considerably more than that in a Romanian deadlift if they use straps and stop short of full range, and plenty of others struggle to reach it because their hamstrings run out of length early. The standard describes a full-range RDL held without straps, which is the version worth measuring.
| Level | Share of the conventional deadlift standard |
|---|---|
| Beginner | 70 percent |
| Novice | 70 percent |
| Intermediate | 70 percent |
| Advanced | 70 percent |
| Elite | 70 percent |
These standards are estimates derived from typical ratios to the main lifts, rounded to the nearest 5 lb. The bench, squat, deadlift and overhead press figures they are built on are the bodyweight-ratio approximations published on our strength standards page, which are aligned with widely used references in the strength and conditioning field including ExRx.net. Nothing here is measured lab data, and no table anywhere else has been copied. Treat every figure as a target to aim at, not a verdict on you.
Romanian Deadlift Standards for Men
Estimated 1-rep max through a full hinge, by bodyweight.
| Bodyweight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 110 lb | 75 lb | 115 lb | 155 lb | 195 lb | 230 lb |
| 130 lb | 90 lb | 135 lb | 180 lb | 230 lb | 275 lb |
| 150 lb | 105 lb | 155 lb | 210 lb | 265 lb | 315 lb |
| 170 lb | 120 lb | 180 lb | 240 lb | 300 lb | 355 lb |
| 190 lb (your bodyweight) | 135 lb | 200 lb | 265 lb | 335 lb | 400 lb |
| 210 lb | 145 lb | 220 lb | 295 lb | 370 lb | 440 lb |
| 230 lb | 160 lb | 240 lb | 320 lb | 405 lb | 485 lb |
| 250 lb | 175 lb | 260 lb | 350 lb | 440 lb | 525 lb |
Romanian Deadlift Standards for Women
Estimated 1-rep max through a full hinge, by bodyweight.
| Bodyweight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 110 lb | 45 lb | 75 lb | 100 lb | 145 lb | 185 lb |
| 130 lb | 55 lb | 90 lb | 120 lb | 175 lb | 220 lb |
| 150 lb | 65 lb | 105 lb | 135 lb | 200 lb | 250 lb |
| 170 lb | 70 lb | 120 lb | 155 lb | 225 lb | 285 lb |
| 190 lb | 80 lb | 135 lb | 175 lb | 255 lb | 320 lb |
| 210 lb | 90 lb | 145 lb | 190 lb | 280 lb | 355 lb |
| 230 lb | 95 lb | 160 lb | 210 lb | 305 lb | 385 lb |
| 250 lb | 105 lb | 175 lb | 225 lb | 330 lb | 420 lb |
A Worked Example
Turning a set of eight into a level.
A 190 lb man deadlifts 380 lb at the intermediate standard, so his intermediate Romanian deadlift is 265 lb. Suppose he does eight controlled reps with 185 lb, stopping each rep at mid-shin without letting his back round. That set estimates out at about 230 lb for a single, which puts him past the novice mark of 200 lb and closing on intermediate at 265 lb.
Two things follow from that. First, he should not be programming his RDL off his deadlift percentage, because 70 percent of a deadlift max is a heavy RDL, not a warm-up. Second, if his RDL is stuck at 40 percent of his deadlift, the limiting factor is probably range or grip rather than hamstring strength, and that is a technique problem worth fixing before adding load.
What These Standards Cannot Tell You
The RDL resists measurement more than most lifts.
Nobody should be testing a true Romanian deadlift single. The lift is at its most useful in the range of six to twelve controlled reps, and a genuine max attempt turns it into a stiff-legged grind with a rounded back, which is neither safe nor informative. Estimate your max from a hard set of six to ten instead, and treat the result as a planning figure.
Range of motion is the other loose variable. Two lifters with identical hamstring strength will hold very different loads if one stops at the knee and the other goes past mid-shin, and hip mobility varies enormously between people. Fix where the bar stops before you compare yourself to anything, and understand that a short RDL and a long one are not the same exercise.
More Tools
Check the hinge, then the rest of the posterior chain.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about these standards.
How much should I be able to Romanian deadlift?
At 190 lb bodyweight the intermediate Romanian deadlift is about 265 lb and the advanced mark is about 335 lb. At 140 lb an intermediate woman is near 125 lb. Enter your own bodyweight at the top for your exact figures.
What is the average Romanian deadlift weight?
Most people who train the RDL regularly work between the novice and intermediate rows, which for a 190 lb man means an estimated single of 200 to 265 lb and working sets of eight somewhere near 155 to 210 lb.
What percentage of my deadlift should my RDL be?
About 70 percent for a full-range RDL without straps, which is the ratio these tables are built on. Using straps and a shorter range will push that higher, and a very long-legged lifter with tight hamstrings may sit well below it.
Should I max out on the Romanian deadlift?
No. The lift is designed for controlled reps, and a true single almost always turns into a rounded-back stiff-legged deadlift. Estimate your max from a set of six to ten and use that number for programming.
Is the RDL better than the conventional deadlift for hamstrings?
It puts the hamstrings under tension for longer and through a longer stretch, which is why most programmes use it as the hamstring accessory. It does not replace the conventional deadlift, which trains the floor break and the leg drive that the RDL skips.
How are these Romanian deadlift standards calculated?
Every level is 70 percent of the deadlift standard for the same bodyweight and sex, rounded to the nearest 5 lb. These are estimates derived from a typical ratio between the two lifts rather than measured test data.