My gym has a new free weight apparatus called a trap bar. At least I think it’s new because I see every muscle head waiting to use it. I wanted to give it a try in lieu of my usual dead lift and came across this video:
Can someone explain the difference between the dead lift and RDL? While their descriptions differ, the demo videos look like they are the same exercise.
I’ll take a shot. I’ve done deadlifts both the traditional (normal barbell) and hex/trap bar. I LOVE the hex/trap bar, and don’t even consider going back to the traditional bar.
In a nutshell, it is a fairly subtle difference: the “lifting angle” being maybe 8 to 10 inches in front vs. being aligned with your feet/ankles. With the “lifting angle” being in front (by even 8") using a normal bar, you need (your body needs) to compensate for lifting something “in front” of you. This translates to your back - where the muscles controlling the pivot of your hips are engaged. So when you lift, not only are you lifting “up”, but your back is also “pulling back” to adjust for the weight in front.
With the hex/trap bar, the “in front” of aspect is eliminated (but has other side effects - more on that in a bit). Since you’re standing “in” the bar, you can align the grips with your legs. When you lift, you are now only lifting “up”, no longer “pulling back”.
The hex/trap bar has the added advantage of eliminating the concern of banging your knees on the way up or down. This is what originally sold me on it. With a normal bar, you need to “time” when to straighten/bend your knees with the motion of the bar. Off by a fraction of a second, and you smack your knees/upper shins/lower quads with the bar. Not fun (I speak from experience).
The only “downside” or other difference with the trap/hex bar is that, unlike with a normal bar, you don’t have any choice on the spacing of your grip. There are handles on the bar, and you have to use them. For me, the spacing is a bit wide for my shoulder width. So unlike with a bar, where you can grip so that your arms are straight down, with the trap/hex bar your arms spread out to the grip. What this does is that it requires you to engage your upper back/shoulders as you lift. Because you’re “pulling in” (toward your body) with your arms this is slightly different than how you would engage your upper back with a normal bar.
Hope this helps.
That’s exactly my problem. In order to compensate for not hitting my shins or knees, I definitely put more stress on my back. That’s why I was checking out the video in the link. My question was that the video distinguishes between straight dead lift and Romanian dead lift with the trap bar. To me, they look exactly the same.
Sorry I misunderstood what you were looking for. I took a closer look at the videos and there is a difference.
The first video (the guy in the blue shirt) is doing a traditional deadlift with the trap/hex bar. The second video (the guy in the black shirt) is doing what they refer to as the “Romanian” deadlift (also with the trap/hex bar).
What I see is the difference in the degree to which you squat down: with the traditional, you bend your knees a good amount and thereby thrust your butt back. With the Romanian, the knees don’t bend nearly as much, and therefore his butt isn’t thrust back as much. Look at the angle of his lower legs when the weights hit the ground - they are almost vertical. So I think the Romanian version is relying more on your back angling down to get the weights to the ground, whereas with the traditional, you use your legs to lower more of your body to get the weights to the ground.
Yes, now I see it. Thank you. So now I realize that all this time I’ve been doing Romanian dead lifts with the straight bar. And now I’m even more on board with the trap bar.