Single Leg Deadlift: How to Do It, Muscles Worked and Benefits

The single leg deadlift is a hip hinge done on one leg: you push your hips back and let your torso and your free leg rotate towards horizontal, then stand back up. It looks like a party trick and feels like one the first time you try it, but it is one of the most useful lower body exercises you can own. It builds the same hamstrings and glutes as a normal deadlift while asking your hips to stay level, which is a job the two-legged version never demands. It also has a habit of telling you uncomfortable truths about your weaker side. Here is how to do it well.

How to do a single leg deadlift

Learn it with no weight at all. Add load only once you can do the pattern without wobbling.

1. Set your stance. Stand on one leg with a soft bend in the knee, roughly 15 to 20 degrees. Keep that bend fixed for the whole rep. A locked knee turns this into a hamstring stretch, not a lift.
2. Find a spot. Fix your eyes on a point on the floor about a metre and a half in front of you. Do not watch the weight and do not look at the mirror.
3. Hinge. Push your hips straight back and let your torso tip forward. Your free leg swings back behind you, staying in line with your spine, so that at the bottom your body forms roughly one straight line from your head to your heel.
4. Go as far as your hamstrings allow. Stop when your standing hamstring is at full stretch or your torso reaches horizontal, whichever comes first. That is usually around knee height for the weight, not the floor.
5. Stand up. Drive your hips forward and squeeze the glute of your standing leg to return. Do not lean back at the top.

Muscles worked

• Hamstrings. The standing leg's hamstrings control the descent and drive the return, working through a long stretch because your torso travels a long way.
• Gluteus maximus. The main hip extensor, doing the work of standing you back up.
• Gluteus medius. This is the reason to do the exercise. Standing on one leg means the glute medius on that side has to stop your pelvis dropping on the free side. EMG work comparing the single leg deadlift with the conventional bilateral deadlift found substantially higher glute medius activity in the single leg version, around 78 percent against 59 percent (EMG comparison of single-leg and conventional bilateral deadlift).
• Spinal erectors and core. Your lower back holds a neutral spine, and if you hold the weight in the opposite hand, your obliques and lats resist a constant rotational pull.
• Foot, ankle and calf. Constant small corrections to keep you upright. This is the part that makes it useful for anyone who runs.

The trade-off is load. Balance caps the weight well below what your hamstrings could handle, so this is not the lift that will make you strong in an absolute sense. A meta-analysis comparing unilateral and bilateral training found both improve performance, with neither clearly superior across the board (effect of unilateral and bilateral training on physical performance), which is a good argument for using both rather than picking a side.

Benefits

• It finds your weak side. Two-legged lifts let your stronger leg quietly carry more of the load. Standing on one leg makes that impossible to hide, and a gap of a few reps between sides is common and worth fixing.
• It loads the glute medius properly. Few exercises train hip stability under load. This is one, and weak hip stability shows up as knees caving in on squats and hips dropping when you run.
• It is easy on your back. You get a genuine hamstring and glute stimulus with a dumbbell or two rather than a loaded barbell, so the compressive load on your spine is tiny by comparison.
• It carries over to real life. Walking, running and climbing stairs all happen on one leg at a time.
• It needs almost nothing. One dumbbell or kettlebell and a bit of floor.

Common mistakes

• Opening the hip. The most common fault by far. Your free leg's hip rotates outwards so your toes point sideways and your pelvis turns. Keep the free hip pointing at the floor, toes down, as if you had a headlight on your hipbone shining straight down.
• Rounding your back to reach the floor. The weight does not need to touch down. Stop where your hamstring stops you.
• Straightening the standing knee. Locks the leg and moves the load out of the muscle.
• Rushing. Balance needs time. Two seconds down, a pause, then up.
• Going too heavy too soon. If you are hopping to stay upright, you are training hopping.

Variations and progressions

Supported single leg deadlift. Rest your fingertips on a wall, a chair back or a squat rack upright. This removes the balance problem entirely so you can actually load the hamstrings. The best starting point for most people.

Two-hand single leg deadlift. Hold a dumbbell or kettlebell in both hands. Easiest to balance, so it lets you go heaviest, and it is the version to use if hamstring size is your goal.

Contralateral (opposite hand). The standard version. One weight in the hand opposite your standing leg, which adds a rotational demand your core has to fight.

Ipsilateral (same hand). Weight in the same-side hand. Easier to balance than the opposite-hand version and a reasonable stepping stone.

Kickstand deadlift. Keep the toes of your back foot lightly touching the floor behind you for balance while your front leg does nearly all the work. A great bridge between a Romanian deadlift and the full single leg version.

Deficit single leg deadlift. Stand on a low step or a plyo box so the weight can travel further. Only once everything else is clean.

Where it fits in a session

Treat this as an accessory, not a main lift. It works well after your heavy work, when a light weight is all you want anyway, or early in a session as part of a warm-up if you are using it for hip stability. Three sets of 6 to 10 per leg, once or twice a week, alongside Romanian deadlifts for loaded hamstring work and hip thrusts or glute bridges for the glutes, covers the back of your legs thoroughly. Always lead with your weaker leg and let it set the number of reps for the other side.

A single pair of adjustable dumbbells or a couple of kettlebells is all the kit this needs, which makes it one of the best value exercises in a home gym.

Recommended reads

• Romanian Deadlift
• Bulgarian Split Squat
• Hamstring Exercises
• Glute Exercises
• Workout & Exercise Guides