Deadlifts, RDLs, and the Fake Risk/Reward Ratio by Jack Bissett, SSC | December 17, 2025 Vast quantities of hot air are emitted by coaches and influencers up and down the country every single day on the deadlift and its poor risk to reward ratio. The deadlift, so they say, is an inherently risky and dangerous movement with the potential to inflict serious injury on the person performing it. This obvious truth, coupled with the fact that you can get an equally effective stimulus from the deadlift’s much safer cousin, the Romanian Deadlift (RDL), means that the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze when it comes to pulling from the floor. This is yet another example of a widely accepted and acknowledged idea in the fitness world being completely and utterly wrong, as I will now demonstrate. The Risk The idea that the deadlift is a dangerous movement is very common, but the data does not support this claim. Injury rates among competitive powerlifters and Olympic weightlifters remain low when compared to most other professional sports. The anecdotal data from competent coaches who coach the deadlift every single day also suggest that it’s perfectly safe when programmed and executed correctly. The very few deadlifting tweaks I’ve seen have always come down to sloppy technique and over-ambitious weight selection on the part of the lifter. Indeed, most back issues I’ve dealt with in my own experience had more to do with that individual being overweight and/or sedentary. Yet you don’t see many coaches or influencers going around claiming that being sedentary is inherently dangerous for your spine. As for the RDL, there is no evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that it is safer than the conventional pull. I think the perception that the RDL is safer comes in part from the idea that it places less stress on the lower back. To that I would say two things: first, your lower back is not special, it responds and adapts to stress just like every other part of your body. Second, when people talk about “stress” on the lower back they’re very seldom talking about tension or compression forces. Normally, they’re talking about moment force. It is the rotational forces on the spine that are generally perceived as the most dangerous ones. Well, the RDL typically produces a more horizontal back angle than the deadlift does, meaning the RDL puts a greater moment arm on the lower back than the deadlift does. So, wouldn’t that make the RDL “riskier”? All of this is to say that the suggestion that the deadlift is risky is just that: a suggestion, based mostly on vibes, received opinion, and confirmation bias – not reasoning or data. The Reward “Okay, the deadlift isn’t risky. But still, why should I bother with it when I can get an equally good training stimulus from performing RDLs?” This idea can only be true if you don’t think about it at all. When training for strength you want to prioritize exercises that use the greatest amount of muscle mass, over the longest effective range of motion, to lift the greatest amount of weight. If you apply this analysis to these two movements the argument falls apart quickly. The deadlift uses more muscle mass since the quads are largely removed from the RDL. The deadlift also uses a longer range of motion (I know some people can RDL down to the floor but that’s not the typical way they are performed), and uses far heavier loads than the RDL too. In addition, if you consider that RDLs are typically programmed for higher reps than the deadlift the problem becomes even worse. Once again, the argument really comes down to feelings and perceptions. The RDL provides a deep stretch for the hamstrings, coupled with the pump generated by higher rep work, and it’s easy to feel the localized effect of the RDL. The fatigue produced by the deadlift is far more general. It manifests as whole body exhaustion, not local muscle soreness or burning. To the uninitiated and the ignorant it is therefore easy to conclude that the RDL is providing a greater stimulus and is the more effective “hinge” movement, but this simply does not stand up to scrutiny. Whichever way you slice it the deadlift provides a far more powerful strength training stimulus than the RDL – because the weight is heavier The Truth Behind the Ratio The deadlift is no more or less “risky” than the RDL and it provides a much more powerful training stimulus, so why does this idea persist in weight rooms around the world? The answer is simple; coaches and lifters taking the easy way out. Heavy deadlifts are hard. They’re stressful, scary, and often suck. They demand a lot from you, mentally and physically, and that’s why they’re so damned effective. They also require knowledge, experience, and a little bit of effort to coach correctly. RDLs, on the other hand, are easy. They’re nowhere near as stressful to perform because they don’t challenge your mind or body in the same way. They also require minimal instruction and input to coach. Why do something hard when you could do something easy, right? The only problem is that “easy” doesn’t work. I don’t mean to dish on the RDL here. It’s a perfectly fine assistance exercise and it does have a place in your training arsenal. The problem isn’t the RDL. The problem is coaches and lifters avoiding hard work and rather than acknowledging their cowardice they try to hide behind intellectual sounding claims about risk-to-reward ratio, as if they’ve made a seriously considered analysis of the situation. They haven’t; they’re lazy morons, and they’re just coping. What’s worse is that their bullshit feeds into the negative narrative about a perfectly safe and incredibly powerful strength training tool. If anyone ever talks about the risk to reward ratio of deadlifting, you have my permission to strike them. Or just link them to this article and politely ignore anything else they have to say on the topic. Don’t let negative attitudes and ignorance scare you out of deadlifting. Put in the effort, learn to do them right, hire a coach to help you, and then see for yourself just how powerful a tool they are.
