Benefits, Common Mistakes, and Variations – Fitness Volt

Band straight leg deadlifts (BSLDL) are intended as a pull movement alternative to its free weight counterpart based on an old-school technique that emphasizes the stretch and contraction in your rear-facing hamstring thigh muscles. Compared to a conventional deadlift, BSLDLs are more posterior-focused like the Romanian deadlift but can blow up your quads too!

BSDLDs are not what we’d call a beginner movement as it does involve a degree of complexity and training experience both for muscle gain accuracy, strength, and injury prevention. 

This guide will focus on the band straight leg deadlift technique, its benefits, common mistakes to avoid, and variations and alternatives. 

How To Do The Band Straight Leg Deadlift

Form and weight are going to be crucial when setting up and executing the band straight leg deadlift. Because the legs, as the name suggests, will remain mostly (Not totally) straight which means the hamstrings, and hips are pulling a large portion of the load. 

Steps

Now we’ll instruct you on each step in the process of performing a band straight leg deadlift.

Step 1: Setup – Anchor your band to the floor by stepping on it with both feet in a roughly hip width stance. Grab the band with both hands low enough to create tension at the bottom of the movement when you’re bent over. 

Step 2: Starting posture – Start from a standing position, and pre-engage your core muscles to stiffen your spine and protect your lower back. 

Step 3: Hip hinge – Keeping your legs softly bent, back neutral (Not too rounded or arched) strongly squeeze your midsection then bend forward at the hips as far as you comfortably can. You should feel an incredible stretch in your hamstrings. 

Step 4: Drive the hips and glutes – Now contract your hamstrings, squeeze your glutes, and push your hips forward and stand upright, then repeat for the desired number of repetitions. 

Tips 

• If it’s your first time attempting straight leg deadlifts, start with a lighter to moderate strength band. 
• While it’s called a straight leg deadlift, we recommend keeping the knees soft to avoid, hyperextending your knees.  
• Keep in mind, limb length, and body proportions often affect movement, and muscle activation factors. You may also feel a movement more in one muscle than another while someone else experiences the opposite effect which could change your gains ratios. And training tends to be very individual regardless. Therefore, you should have a clear goal in mind with each movement, and be open to modifying your technique to achieve the desired outcome. 
• Similar to the Romanian deadlift (RDL), the band straight leg deadlift should begin from a standing position as the goal is more precision focused. 

This Exercise:

• Target muscle group: Hamstrings, erector spinae
• Type: Hypertrophy 
• Mechanics: Isolation
• Equipment: Resistance band 
• Difficulty: Intermediate 

Muscles Worked During The Band Straight Leg Deadlift

If you want to train all of the muscles on the backside of your body in one shot, band straight leg deadlifts are one way to do that.

Hamstrings

Like the gluteus maximus, hamstrings are said to have three portions, semitendinosus, semimembranosus, and biceps femoris. Hammies are multifunctional at both the hip and knee joints, creating extension, and flexion, respectively. 

A properly performed BSLDL should give you one of the best hamstring stretches, and consequently better ham development. 

Erector spinae

Considered both part of your spinal and core muscles, erector spinae are as long as the length from your hips to the bumpy bone on the back of your head. They border the vertebral column and when contracted, bring us upright from bent over, and rotate us in either direction. 

Straight leg deadlifts are a great erector spinae movement, although you want the brunt of your power coming from the hamstrings. 

Adductor magnus

A huge muscle on the inner thigh from the hip bone to the femur, adductor magnus, primarily tasked with pulling the thigh inward when in cahoots with other four leg adductors, can also flex and extend the thigh due to it’s posterolateral fibers. 

Gluteus maximus

While your butt is three muscles packed into the hip, your gluteus maximus asserts its dominance as the largest and most powerful of the trio. If you want to lift like a pro, you need a strong tooshie, as it’s a prime hip extender. Not to mention, the aesthetic benefits of heaving a beautifully rounded derrière.

Quadriceps

Some lifters will see improved quadriceps development despite BSLDLs involving high hip positioning, and less knee flexion. Who says the quads can’t benefit from a change of training style?

Having five muscles on the front part of your upper leg, the quadriceps typically help flex the hips and straighten the legs. Crucial muscles to any heavy compound lift, you’ll be happy they’re involved and benefit as the quad muscles contribute hugely to leg strength and mass gains. 

Benefits of The Band Straight Leg Deadlift

If you’re unfamiliar with the benefits of training your posterior chain, then this information is for you.

Build a protective layer of eccentric hamstring resilience 

Strengthening your hamstrings when the muscle fibers are in a lengthened position can mean the difference between injury and seeing another day at the gym, or competitive surface of choice. Don’t take out word for it though. Research has shown this to be a favorable preventative strategy.

But it makes more sense when you understand the correlation. Sports related hamstring injuries are often due to sudden movements that over stretch your rear facing thigh muscles. Hence if you’ve not properly adapted them to frequent stretching sessions, don’t expect them to hold up to what they weren’t prepared for (1).

Bring your rear up to par

Oftentimes home workouts are more anterior muscle focused, especially if you have limited resources to train with. A heavy band or two can easily fix that. Furthermore, hip hinge variations are must have for optimal strength and muscle development in the glutes, hamstrings, and spinal fibers. 

Level up your athleticism 

Whether you’re a sports athlete or you just like to take on whatever physical activity that gives you pleasure, you can hardly do too much posterior training. Not only will training the explosive rear muscles give you a competitive edge, but you’ll forge your hamstrings and glutes against injury causing impact. 

Common Mistakes During The Band Straight Leg Deadlift

With lighter loads the risk is less apparent, however, even the smallest poor technique or failure to warmup properly can hurt your back, or tear a muscle. Try to avoid these bad lifting habits.

Maintaining completely straight legs 

While the name suggests the legs should be completely straight, few people, unless highly experienced are able to safely lock their knees… and train heavy. The technique, and of course, your level of training should dictate the amount of resistance used. Otherwise, pairing fully straight knees and heavy weight could overstress or hyperextend your knees.

Dangerous back posture 

This is especially bad if you have limited training experience and are using heavy near max load resistance that pushes you hard within the first few repetitions. Unless you’re a seasoned lifter and are performing a conventional deadlift in which a rounded back is necessary, you should lift with a mostly neutral but not totally arched back for this variation.

Variations and Alternatives of The Band Straight Leg Deadlift 

These exercises should have a similar effect on the same muscle groups as a band straight leg deadlift. However, alternative exercises can have varying degrees of how much emphasis they put on an individual muscle. For example, while the band straight leg deadlift should heavily work the hamstrings, another movement may engage the glutes more due to the position and technique. 

Band unilateral straight leg deadlift 

If you’re able to shift any exercise performed on two legs into a one legged movement, you’re going to be experience different benefits. Training one leg at a time requires balance, core control, and total body stability. Not to mention, if you feel there’s a weaker side in a two legged movement, you can use unilateral variations to even out your left to right strength. Single limb movement are typically more functional overall, especially if it’s leg involved. 

Freeweight straight leg deadlift 

There’s going to be a significant different between a barbell and band straight leg deadlift. And there are pros and cons to both. Free weights allow you to train heavier, and the range of motion is often greater too. Plus, using a barbell will yield consistent resistance from top to bottom unlike bands that must stretch. 

Cable straight leg deadlift 

While cables and bands seems similar, the only thing they share is the variety of positions you can train from. Because cables don’t stretch to create resistance and you can see how much weight you’re lifting too. 

Tips

• Slide the pulley low to the bottom of the cable machine to best replicate a deadlift.
• Follow the primary straight leg deadlift instructions above to achieve the same outcome. 

Here’s one way you can practice this movement. 

Stiff legged deadlift 

You’ll need more knee flexion to activate the hamstrings muscles, unlike the straight leg deadlift that will be slightly more glute and erector spinae dominant. Experimenting and training with various knee positions will teach you how to shift the stretch and load to the different muscles. 

Steps

1. Grab your band in both hands, then anchor it down evenly with both feet. Do a few practice reps to make sure there’s resistance at the bottom when you’re in the bent over position. Grab lower for more resistance, or higher to lighten the load. 
2. Bend your knees slightly, tense your core muscles, and keeping your back straight, fold over at the hips. You should feel the hamstrings stretching. 
3. Now push your hips forward and stand totally straight with the legs extended. 
4. Drop down and repeat the previous steps until you’ve completed the optimal number of reps. 

FAQ’s

Wrapping Up

If there was any confusion as to the straight leg deadlift technique then hopefully it’s a little clearer after reading through this guide. The key takeaway is to keep the knees bent but not too much to ensure you’re engaging the proper muscles, primarily the ones that run the length of your back, optimally. Moreover, if you can safely perform BSLDL with straight knees, you should be very experienced, and know how to choose your weight wisely. 

Train within your limitations and, consider lower rep, high intensity sets when you can confidently and properly understand ideal hip hinge technique, and proper joint angles to target the desired muscle groups.

References:

1. Raya-Gonzalez J, Castillo D, Clemente FM. Injury prevention of hamstring injuries through exercise interventions. J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2021 Sep;61(9):1242-1251. doi: 10.23736/S0022-4707.21.11670-6. Epub 2021 Jan 22. PMID: 33480508.