Bridging the Gap: Staggered-Stance RDL

Getting from two legs to one leg without missing a beat

Most sports demand that an athlete be prepared to sprint, stop, cut, jump and land, more often than not, on a single leg. It’s the reason that it’s critical to include unilateral (one arm or one leg) movements in an athlete’s strength program.

The benefits of training on a single leg are immense, but becoming proficient in true unilateral exercises can pose some challenges. The single-leg Romanian deadlift (RDL) is a great tool for athletes to build hamstring strength, but it’s a movement that takes time to gain that proficiency.

The jump from two legs to one leg can be tough, so it’s nice to have exercises that can bridge that gap. We see the staggered-stance RDL as a great way to do that. It’s just a slight adjustment from the normal RDL, but it takes about 90% of the stress and puts it on a single leg.

Beyond bridging the gap to the unilateral variation, the staggered-stance RDL does a couple more things that often get overlooked.

First, with many of our training programs being 6–8 weeks, we often don’t have time to progress to a full single-leg RDL. This variation gives us the opportunity to gain many of those benefits even if we don’t get there. We don’t have to rush to the true unilateral progression.

Secondly, if the goal is to really maximize hamstring strength, the staggered-stance RDL allows the athlete to load the movement much heavier than its single-leg counterpart while still isolating a single limb. Insofar as the intensity matters for adaptation, this seems like it would be an advantage.

Don’t take my word for it. Grab a bar, stagger your stance and tell us what you think.