Smith Machine Stiff-Legged Deadlift
Trains the Hamstrings.
- Equipment
- A machine
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Beginner
How to do it
- Set the Smith machine bar at about mid-thigh height and stand facing it.
- Take an overhand grip about shoulder-width and unhook the bar.
- Stand with your feet hip-width, back flat, knees almost straight.
- Push your hips back and lower the bar down the front of your legs along the fixed line.
- Go until the hamstrings stop the movement with the back still flat.
- Drive the hips forward to stand, and re-hook the bar at the end of the set.
Common mistakes
- Standing in the wrong place. The bar's path is fixed and vertical, so your feet decide whether it travels down your legs or away from them — set before the first repetition, not adjusted during one.
- Treating the fixed path as back support. The machine holds the bar's line; the flat back is still yours, and the hinge is no easier here.
- Loading it beyond a free-bar version because the balance is removed. The load through the spine at a hinge is the same whether or not the bar wobbles.
- Bending the knees to reach further. The near-straight knee is the exercise; bending it hands the range back to the hips and knees.