Aluminum-lithium alloys have been extensively used in the aviation and aerospace field. Now it is one of the critical materials for the production of large aircraft in China. Thermoplastic deformation is one of the key methods to solve the difficulty in the precise deformation of Al-Li alloy parts. The thermoplastic deforming behavior of the Al-Li alloys is characterized by a phenomenological model. The effects of deforming temperature, strain rate, and combining with strain are applied to fit and predict the flow stress in the model. However, the model does not explicitly explain the deformation mechanism. The physical constitutive model takes into account the physical parameters and the microstructure evolution of the material during deformation,such as dislocation density, grain size, and dynamic recrystallization, which is the development trend of the thermoplastic deforming constitutive relationship of Al-Li alloy. In this paper, the researches on the phenomenological constitutive models and physical constitutive models summarized commonly are adopted to characterize the thermoplastic deformation of Al-Li alloys. Besides, the characterization tendency is forecasted.