1Lower back rounds
What you see: The back curls forward to reach lower.
The fix: "Chest out." Stop where your back stops being flat. Your range grows as your hamstrings loosen.
Form guides · Hinge
The hip hinge: hips back, back flat.
The Romanian deadlift teaches the pattern behind every safe lift from the floor.
What good looks like.
In a Romanian deadlift you start standing, then push your hips back and lower the weight down your legs until you feel your hamstrings stretch. Leaning forward is the whole point, so a trainer is not watching how far you lean. They are watching whether your back stays flat and whether your hips, not your knees, are doing the moving.
- Start tall, knees soft, weight close to your thighs.
- Push your hips straight back, as if closing a car door with your bum.
- Back flat and "chest out" all the way down.
- Lower until your hamstrings stretch, often around the knee or just below.
- Drive your hips forward to stand, glutes squeezed at the top.
- Chin in
- Back flat: "chest out"
- Hips push back
- Knees soft, not bending more
The faults a trainer sees most
What goes wrong, and the cue that fixes it.
The cues in quotes are the words Brad Glaser uses with his own clients.
2Squatting it
What you see: The knees bend more and more and the hips drop, so it becomes a squat.
The fix: Keep the same small knee bend from top to bottom and send the hips back, not down.
3Weight drifts away
What you see: The dumbbells or bar swing out in front.
The fix: Keep the weight brushing your legs the whole way.
4Head looks up
What you see: The chin lifts to watch yourself in the mirror.
The fix: "Chin in." Let your eyes follow the floor as you hinge.
Make it easier, make it harder.
Easier
- Hip hinge with a dowel along your back: head, upper back and tailbone stay touching it.
- Hinge to touch your hips to a wall behind you.
- Lighter dumbbells.
Harder
- Single-leg Romanian deadlift.
- A barbell, once your back stays flat with dumbbells.
- A slow three-second lower.
Move within a range that feels comfortable, and stop any exercise that hurts. Have a health condition, or been inactive a while? Ask your doctor what is right for you first. VeraForma is coaching, not medicine. It does not diagnose, treat or cure anything, and it does not replace your doctor or physio.
Let your phone check it.
Prop your phone up and train. VeraForma's camera draws the line on your body and names what it sees, with the number it measured.
Free: your reps counted out loud, and the common standing faults shown right on screen, with the fix in your set report. Go Premium and it speaks the fix while you move: "Knees out." "Chest up."
Scan to open it on your phone.
Free: your movement screen, Phase 1 of your programme and all of nutrition.
More form guides
Built by Brad Glaser · NASM Master Trainer · NASM-CPT, CES, PES · 20+ years · has certified 100+ personal trainers.
He owns a personal-training studio in Southern California. The same method he uses standing next to a client, built into the app.
Train it right, free.
Scan to open it on your phone.
Free account, no card. Brad's questions. One squat on camera. Then your results.