deadlift vs. romanian or “rdl”

One of my training clients told me the other day that he was substituting the “Romanian Deadlift” for the barbell deadlift in his strength program, and asked for some more information about how to do it properly. He thought that because it is a hip hinge movement, that it would take the place of the barbell deadlift. WRONG! The very word “deadlift” implies picking up a “dead weight” from the ground. The barbell deadlift, (or deadlift with other odd-shaped loads such as a sandbag, stone, etc.) begins with the body hinging down to grip the load in the very worst mechanically-leveraged position, and requires that the lifter contract all of the muscles to produce enough force to drag the weight straight up the legs until fully extended in a standing position. I told this client that I did see some similarity between the two-handed kettlebell swing- a dynamic hip hinging movement- and the “Romanian”, because both of these movements use the stretch reflex of the posterior chain muscles to assist the lift with momentum. Where these two movements differ is the application of speed, or “hip snap” in the swing, and the relative position of the load to the body- obviously in the kettlebell swing, the load swings away from the body’s center of gravity and with the “Romanian” it stays in contact with the legs. I myself make use of a properly performed deadlift to develop strength of the posterior chain, and variants of the kettlebell swing (two-hand, one-hand, hand-to-hand) for conditioning, a fitness adaptation quite distinct from strength. Strength implies force production, while conditioning implies work capacity. These are two separate things, and coming back to the original point of this post, there is zero similarity between a deadlift and what many refer to as a “Romanian deadlift”, which IS NOT a deadlift in any way, shape, or form. Thanks for reading.