and suddenly he collapses, as if picked off by a sniper at long range, clutching the back of his thigh. The crowd goes quiet. The announcers turn somber. It’s another hamstring tear.

Strengthen Your Hamstrings With These 7 Exercises and 3 Workouts

The hamstrings—a collection of three muscles extending from your sit bones to the backs of your knees—are among the most frequently injured muscles in sports. A study on NFL players reported 1,716 hamstring injuries over a 10-year period, which breaks down to roughly five or six injuries per team, per season. The numbers are similar in pro soccer, basketball, and among regular people in recreational sports (1, 2).

If you’re an athlete, or a weekend warrior who likes to run fast, jump high, and train hard, your hamstrings are at risk. If you’re a desk jockey who spends most of his/her day sitting at a computer, you may be even worse off, especially if you’re planning to get in shape or be more active again. A 2017 study of college students found that 82% of the subjects had tight hamstrings due to prolonged sitting—and these were young adults with a mean age of 20.

Finally, if you’re a gym rat who’s long made the mistake of focusing your leg training on the fronts of your thighs—hitting the hammies as an afterthought—you’ve already lit the fuse that can lead to a hamstring blowout. A study in Isokinetics and Exercise Science showed that imbalances in quad and hamstring strength were associated with non-contact leg injuries.

But don’t worry, we’ve got your back… er, legs. You’re about to get a full tutorial on how to stretch, strengthen, and otherwise bulletproof your hamstrings to prevent injury and improve performance.

How To Strengthen Your Hamstrings

Most muscles work like a winch system: they pull a load toward a fixed point. The top end of your biceps, for example, affixes to the front of your shoulder, giving its lower end a stable point from which to pull. Flex your bi’s, or do a dumbbell curl, and you can see how it works.

The hamstrings, however, are twice as complex. They cross two major joints—the hip and the knee—and shorten at both ends. At the top end, the hamstrings work with your glute muscles to extend your hip (picture the movement of standing up out of a chair). At the lower end—near the back of your knee—the hammies bend your knee joint, pulling your heel up and back. When you use the hamstrings’ two functions at once, such as when you’re sprinting and you drive one leg behind you, they do double duty: the two ends of the muscles pull toward one another, like the ends of a stretched-out exercise band. That’s a lot of tension passing through a single muscle group, and one reason the hamstrings cramp and tear with relative frequency.

Another reason: in our couch-sitting, desk-working world, the glutes—whose primary job is to extend your hips—get overstretched, weak, and, consequently, have a tendency to get lazy. Instead of springing into action when you sprint or jump or go for a max-effort deadlift, they may shirk their duties, forcing the hamstrings to take on a load they weren’t built to handle. Hamstrings picking up the slack for weak glutes is what physical therapists call synergistic dominance: a backup player being forced onto center stage. The rest of us call it an accident waiting to happen.

The remedy: train both major hamstring functions—hip extension and knee flexion—with good form and appropriate loads, and re-train the glutes to do their share of the work.

Pre-Workout Hamstring Stretches

Warm up your hips and hamstrings before any lower-body workout with the following moves, courtesy of Onnit-certified Durability Coach Cristian Plascencia (@cristiangplascencia on Instagram).

Lying L Sit

Step 1: Lie on your back on the floor. Bend your knees and rest your feet close to your butt. Extend your arms by your sides and press your palms into the floor.

Step 2: Tuck your tailbone under slightly so that your pelvis is perpendicular to the floor and your lower back flattens into the floor. Take a deep breath and brace your core.

Step 3: Extend your legs overhead and pull your toes back toward your face. You’ll feel a strong stretch in your hamstrings. Continue to actively pull your toes down and fight to keep your legs straight for 30 seconds. Don’t let your lower back break off the floor. Repeat for 3 total rounds.

Kneeling Half-Mountain Climber Bow Draw

Step 1: Get on all fours with your knees directly under your hips and your hands underneath your shoulders.

Step 2: Step your left foot forward so it lands just outside your left hand. Drive your knee in toward your left arm while pushing your arms apart (left arm toward the left knee, so the two press against each other).

Step 3: Draw your shoulder blades back together and downward. Think: “proud chest.” Tilt your butt up to the ceiling, flattening out your lower back as much as you can, and brace your core. Your body should form a straight line from your head to your tailbone.

Step 4: Begin extending your left knee, pushing your pelvis back toward your right heel. Fight to keep your spine extended and your proud chest position the whole time. Push your foot into the floor so your heel and toes don’t rise up. Finally, bend the knee slowly to come back, and repeat on the opposite side. Perform 5 reps on each side, and repeat for 3 rounds.

Lying Warrior

Step 1: Sit on the floor and spread your legs.

Step 2: Lock out your left leg and twist your torso to the left. Plant your left hand behind your hips and use it to help pull you deeper into the twist. Reach your right arm past your left foot. Allow your right leg to roll inward as it follows you and turn the hip into the ground as much as you can.

Step 3: Plant both your hands on the floor behind your hips and extend your spine, drawing your shoulder blades together and downward—think: “proud chest.”

Step 4: Reverse the movement and repeat on the opposite side. As you repeat for reps, try to twist a little deeper, and even bend forward at the hips and rest on your forearms if you can. Perform 5 reps on each side, and repeat for 3 rounds.

The Best Hamstring Exercises

As mentioned above, a hamstring exercise will require you to either extend your hips or bend your knees—and some of the most effective movements will actually combine both actions, training the glutes as well as the hammies. The following are the best hamstring builders, organized by their primary function.

HIP EXTENSION

In these movements, the hamstrings work with the glutes to push your thigh bones from a flexed position (knee pulled up in front of you) to an extended one (knees moving away from your body). The movement is known as a hinge, and it helps you run faster, jump higher, and maintain a pain-free back. “Most of us can’t get enough hinging,” says Tony Gentilcore, C.S.C.S., owner of Core Fitness in Brookline, MA.  

1) Stiff-Legged Deadlift

Step 1: Set a barbell on a rack at about hip level (if you’re very mobile, you can start with the bar on the floor). Grasp the bar with a shoulder-width grip and take it off the rack. Step back and plant your feet hip-width apart. Draw your shoulders back together and downward (think: “proud chest”).

Step 2: Take a deep breath, draw your ribs down, and brace your core. Push your hips backward and, maintaining a long spine from your head to your pelvis, lower your body until you feel a stretch in your hamstrings. Allow your knees to bend only slightly. Actively pull the bar into your body so it stays in contact with your legs the entire time.

Step 3: Squeeze your glutes as you extend your hips and come back up.

The stiff-legged deadlift can also be performed with dumbbells/kettlebells.

2) Back Extension

Step 1: Adjust the pad on the back extension bench so that when you lie on it the top edge lines up with the crease in your hips. Using the handles for support, set up on the bench so your hips rest on the pad and your ankles are braced by the ankle pads and your feet rest against the foot plate about hip-width apart.

Step 2: Turn your toes outward slightly. Interlace your fingers behind your head, spread your elbows wide, and keep them there throughout the movement. Bend at the hips to lower your torso toward the floor, stopping before your lower back rounds. Your head, spine, and pelvis should form a straight line.

Step 3: Take a deep breath into your belly and brace your core. Now squeeze your glutes and hamstrings and extend your hips to raise your torso up until your body forms a straight line from your head to your feet.

If bodyweight alone is too easy for you, add resistance by holding a dumbbell (as shown above).

3) Kettlebell Swing

Step 1: Place a kettlebell on the floor and stand about two feet behind it with feet shoulder-width apart.

Step 2: Draw your shoulder blades together and downward (think: “proud chest”). Draw your ribs down and tuck your tailbone slightly to make your pelvis level with the floor. Brace your abs.

Step 3: Bend your hips backward to lower your torso and grasp the handle of the kettlebell with both hands, overhand.

Step 4: Keeping a long line from your head to your pelvis, and your shoulder blades pressing downward toward your back pockets, shift your weight to your heels. Bend your knees slightly and lift the kettlebell off the floor and hike it back between your legs.

Step 5: When your arms make contact with your inner thighs, forcefully contract your hamstrings and glutes and thrust your hips forward, coming into a standing position and swinging the kettlebell forward and up to about eye level. Allow the kettlebell to swing back between your legs, folding at the hips and bending your knees slightly as the kettlebell swings down and back to begin the next rep.

Do not lift the kettlebell with your upper body, as if performing a front raise shoulder exercise. The swing is an explosive movement and the glutes and hamstrings must perform almost all of the work.

4) Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift

Step 1: Hold a dumbbell in each hand and stand on one leg.

Step 2: Bend your knee slightly. Keeping a long spine and your core braced, drive your hips backward as far as you can, so that your torso lowers toward the floor. Squeeze your glutes to come back up. If you have trouble keeping your balance, you can rest the non-working leg on the floor with your heel raised. Place the toes of that foot right behind the heel of your working foot. Your feet should be hip-width apart.

KNEE FLEXION

These moves (virtually all variations of a machine leg curl) minimize the action at the hip joint while dialing it up at the knee. “I prefer knee flexion isolation moves for beginners and those coming off injury,” says Gentilcore. “There’s more external support so it’s easier to perform and less intimidating.” Isolating a muscle can also help you feel its action more precisely—an essential skill for the novice lifter or athlete.

5) Machine Lying Leg Curl

Step 1: Adjust the ankle pad of the machine so that when you lie down on the support pad your knees will line up with the lever arm’s axis of rotation. Lie facedown on the machine with the backs of your ankles against the ankle pad. If your machine has a support pad that bends upward, position yourself so that your hip joints rest directly over that point.

Step 2: Firmly grasp the machine’s handgrips, lengthening your spine and contracting your lats (the muscles on the sides of your torso). Set your feet so they are parallel and about six inches apart, and flex them hard at the ankles (bend your feet back so your toes are closer to your shins).

Step 3: Keeping your neck and torso long, your hips pressed down into the bench, and your feet parallel throughout the movement, squeeze your hamstrings and slowly bend your knees, drawing the lever arm as close as possible toward your butt.

Step 4: Hold the contracted position for a one-count, squeezing your hamstrings as hard as possible. Slowly reverse the movement, fully straightening your legs at the knees.

HYBRID HIP EXTENSION/KNEE FLEXION

These moves combine the hamstrings’ two functions, making them somewhat more complex than the exercises in the other categories. “Multifaceted movements are great for athletic populations,” says Gentilcore. “They emulate sport and real life to a high degree.” But that doesn’t mean you should skip the other types of hamstring moves, he says, no matter what your goals. “All three categories serve a purpose, and when trained in concert, will likely lead to the best results and more bulletproof hammies.”

6) Glute-Ham Raise

Step 1: Adjust the foot plate of the glute-ham bench back far enough so that when you lie on it the top edge of the pad will line up with the crease in your hips.

Step 2: Using the handles for support, set up on the bench and place your feet on the foot plate, bracing the backs of your ankles against the ankle pads.

Step 3: Set your feet so they are parallel and about hip-width apart. Once your lower body is locked in place, release the handles and extend your hips until your torso is perpendicular to the floor and your knees are bent 90 degrees. This is your starting position.

Step 4: Draw your ribs down and tuck your tailbone under slightly so your pelvis is level. Brace your core. Now lower your body toward the floor under control until it forms a straight line, from head to feet. Your heels will come off the foot plate, and that’s OK. Drive your toes down hard. If that’s too difficult, you can bend slightly at the hips, or use a stick for support (see the Elite Hamstring Workout below).

Step 5: Push your toes into the foot plate and contract your glutes, hamstrings, and calves to pull your body back up to vertical (again, if you need an easier version, keep the bend in your hips). Pause for a moment, and then slowly begin the next rep.

7) Swiss-Ball Leg Curl

Step 1: Lie on your back on the floor with your heels elevated on a medium-sized Swiss ball. Your feet should be about six inches apart and your hands placed beside you on the floor, palms down.

Step 2: Flex your feet, brace your core, and drive your heels into the ball to raise your hips off the floor. Try to keep your neck relaxed, but squeeze your glutes and hamstrings as you bridge up.

Step 3: Bend your knees as in a machine leg curl, rolling the ball toward you. Be sure to keep your core braced so you don’t hyperextend your lower back.

Step 4: Hold the contracted position, squeezing your glutes and hamstrings as hard as possible for a two-count. Then slowly reverse the movement, extending your legs and returning to the starting position.

Best Bodyweight Hamstring Exercises That Can Be Done at Home

If you don’t have a gym membership or are limited to only the most basic equipment (and a little imagination), you can get a great hamstring workout with these exercises.

1) Slider Leg Curl

(See 00:41 in the video above)

This lift is a variation on the Swiss-ball leg curl and uses exercise sliders, but furniture sliders from a hardware store work too, and even paper plates can suffice—if you can train on a waxed or hardwood floor. Ideally, you can perform this move on a smooth surface that won’t create too much friction for the sliders.

Step 1: Lie on your back on the floor. Rest your heels on a pair of sliders and place your hands beside you on the floor, palms down. Set your feet parallel and about six inches apart. Now bend your knees, sliding your feet back close to your butt.

Step 2: Tuck your tailbone under slightly, draw your ribs down, and take a deep breath into your belly. Brace your core. Contract your glutes and hamstrings and press your heels into the sliders, elevating your hips and lower back to full extension. In other words, bridge your hips up. Be sure to keep your core braced to prevent hyperextending your lower back. This is your starting position.

Step 3: Slowly extend your legs, sliding your heels away from you until your butt and legs are just above the floor. When they’re straight, bend your knees and curl the sliders back toward your butt.

If that’s too tough, start by performing only the negative portion of the movement, lowering your body slowly from the bridge position. Take five seconds to straighten your legs, and then rest your butt on the floor if you need to when you reset your legs.

2) Bulgarian Split Squat

(See 01:37 in the video)

Step 1: Stand lunge length in front of a bench, step, or box that’s six to 12 inches high.

Step 2: Step your left foot back and rest the top of your left foot on the bench so that your knee is bent 90 degrees. Your right foot should point straight forward.

Step 3: Hinge your hips back a bit so you feel like you’re leaning forward, but keep your spine straight and tall. Slowly bend your right leg until your left knee is just above the floor. Your front leg should be bent about 90 degrees. Pause, and reverse the movement, squeezing your glutes as you come up.

You can perform the movement with your bodyweight, dumbbells/kettlebells, or a barbell.

3) Dumbbell Stiff-Legged Deadlift

(See 02:34 in the video)

Step 1: Hold a pair of dumbbells at your sides and stand with feet hip-width apart, toes pointing forward. Draw your shoulders back together and downward (think: “proud chest”).

Step 2: Take a deep breath, draw your ribs down, and brace your core. Now push your hips backward and, maintaining a long spine from your head to your pelvis, lower your body until you feel a stretch in your hamstrings. Try to keep your knees nearly straight, but not locked. Your range of motion may not be great, and that’s OK. Go for the stretch, but be safe, and don’t go lower than you feel you have the mobility for. Keep your lower back flat the whole time, and actively pull the weights back to keep them close to your body.

Step 3: Extend your hips and come back up and stand tall.

Put these moves together in this very order for a great hamstring workout, as shown in the video above. At first glance, this routine may not seem like enough work, but consider how you should be performing it. Take each set to within one rep of failure—that is, the point at which your form is about to break down. So if you get 8 reps for an exercise and it’s very hard, to the point where you felt yourself slow down, and you don’t think you can get a ninth rep with good form, STOP the set there. Done in this fashion, the Bulgarian split squats, are very challenging (even at only one set apiece).

1) Slider Leg Curl

Sets: 2  Reps: 6–12

2) Bulgarian Split Squat

Sets: 1  Reps: 8–12 (each leg)

3) Dumbbell Stiff-Legged Deadlift

Sets: 2  Reps: 8–12

Complete Hamstring Workouts

Find the workout that suits your experience level and goals.

Beginner Hamstring Workout

(See 00:55 in the video above)

Just starting out on your quest for unbreakable hamstrings? This is step one: three moves that will blitz the muscles from both ends. Take it easy your first few times in this workout. The moves are entry-level—but if you’re not used to working your hamstrings, they can cramp up when you do too much work too soon. Perform this workout twice a week on nonconsecutive days, either in the same workout that you train your quads and calves, or tacked onto an upper-body day.

1) Back Extension

(See 01:15 in the video)

Sets: 2–3  Reps: 15–20

2) Machine Leg Curl or Banded Leg Curl

(See 01:54 in the video)

Sets: 2–3  Reps: 12–15

If you don’t have access to a lying leg curl machine, use a band around your ankles while you lie on a bench, as shown in the video.

3) Swiss-Ball Leg Curl

(See 02:30 in the video)

Sets: 1–2  Reps: As many as possible with good form

Intermediate Hamstring Workout

(See 03:14 in the video)

Been working out for a while? Below is a leg workout that will give your hamstrings—and the rest of your lower body—a going-over that you might need a few days to recover from. Perform it once or twice a week (do not do any other leg training).

Alternate sets of the paired exercises (marked A and B). So in Superset 1, for example, you’ll perform a set of Bulgarian split squats (one leg and then the other), rest 60–90 seconds, and then a set of slider leg curls. Rest 60–90 seconds, return to the first move, and continue alternating the two moves until you’ve completed three or four sets of each exercise. Then perform the exercises in Superset 2 in the same fashion (do exercise 3 as normal straight sets after you’ve finished all sets for 2A and 2B).

Superset 1:

1A) Bulgarian Split Squat

(See 03:38 in the video)

Sets: 3–4  Reps: 8–12 (each leg)

1B) Slider Leg Curl

(See 04:00 in the video)

Sets: 3–4  Reps: As many reps as possible with good form

Superset 2:

2A) Walking Lunge

(See 04:35 in the video)

Sets: 2–3  Reps: 20–30 (each leg)

2B) Stiff-Legged Deadlift

(See 04:54 in the video)

Sets: 2–3  Reps: 8–10

3) Swiss-Ball Leg Curl

(See 05:37 in the video)

Sets: 2–3  Reps: As many as possible with good form

Elite Hamstring Workout

(See 05:44 in the video)

Feel like your hammies are lagging behind your quads and want to add a little extra work to your leg program? The two mini-workouts below work well as end-of-workout hamstring finishers that you can do after a full-body workout, cardio session, or an upper-body day. You could also add them in on an off day. As in the intermediate workout, alternate sets of each exercise.

Hamstring Finisher Superset #1:

1A) Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift

(See 06:10 in the video)

Sets: 2–3 sets  Reps: 8–12 (each leg)

1B) Slider Leg Curl

(See 06:50 in the video)

Sets: 2–3  Reps: As many reps as possible with good form

Hamstring Finisher Superset #2:

2A) Glute-Ham Raise

(See 07:34 in the video)

Sets: 2–3  Reps: 12–15

2B) Kettlebell Swing

(See 08:38 in the video)

Sets: 2–3 sets  Reps: 15–20

If you’re interested in leg workouts you can do with your bodyweight alone, check out The Best Bodyweight Leg Exercises & Workouts for Strength.

The post Strengthen Your Hamstrings With These 7 Exercises and 3 Workouts appeared first on Onnit Academy.

– The glute-ham raise trains the hamstrings‘ two key functions simultaneously.

– Sets of 5–8 reps may be appropriate to start; later, the glute-ham raise can be trained with low-, moderate-, and high-rep ranges.

– The glute-ham raise movement can be approximated with the Nordic hamstring curl, and other variations that don’t require a glute-ham bench.

How To Properly Do Glute-Ham Raises

You walk into your gym and notice they’ve added some new equipment. Scanning the floor to see what’s changed, you spot what at first glance appears to be a new back extension machine. You go over to claim it, and soon realize it’s not what it seemed. It doesn’t adjust the way you want it to, and, after a few more minutes of fiddling around, you’re not even sure you know what it’s supposed to be. “Piece of junk,” you think, and you walk away, making the biggest mistake of your training career since the day you doubled your dosage of preworkout “just to see what would happen.”

That new machine isn’t for back extensions, and it isn’t a waste of space. More than likely, it’s a glute-ham bench, to be used primarily for glute-ham raises—possibly the greatest exercise for increasing strength in your hamstrings, and bulletproofing your lower body in general. In fact, the glute-ham raise lights up practically every muscle from the top of your back to the back of your heels, and everyone who has access to a glute-ham bench can benefit from performing it.

What Is the Glute-Ham Raise?

The glute-ham raise is a posterior-chain exercise. That is, it trains the muscles on the back side of the body that work together in unison. The hamstrings, however, get hit the hardest. The glute-ham raise is unique in that it works the hamstrings’ two functions—bending the knees and extending the hips—in one fluid movement, and through a full range of motion. We’ll explain in detail how to perform it below, but to get a sense of how the glute-ham raise is done, picture starting off with your torso parallel to the floor, and using the back of your legs to lift your entire body up until it’s perpendicular to the floor. (If that sounds hard to do, well… it is!)

There are only a handful of exercises that mimic the glute-ham raise movement (we’ll show you how to do some of them below, if you don’t have a glute-ham bench). Without them, you would need to perform multiple different exercises to achieve complete hamstring development. For instance, leg curls to work the knee flexion component, and Romanian deadlifts or kettlebell swings to train hip extension. So, glute-ham raises maximize efficiency. They also train the hamstrings in a very functional way that’s perfectly suited to faster running and overall lower-body explosiveness.

Think of how your foot strikes the ground during a sprint. Your hamstrings help to pull it underneath and behind your hips, and bend the knee, to propel your body forward. Powerlifters and weightlifters—guys and gals who need strong posterior muscles to lift the heaviest weights—also flock to the glute-ham bench. Glute-ham raises are a powerful assistance exercise for building up your numbers on the squat, deadlift, and clean.

And that’s why they were originally created. Glute-ham raises were first implemented by weightlifters in the U.S.S.R. sometime in the 20^th century. Soviet athletes dominated the world stage in many different sports for decades. In the 1970s, when American weightlifter Bud Charniga was studying up on Soviet training methods, he discovered the glute-ham raise, and brought it to the States. Unable to find a bench that would allow him to perform it, Charniga mocked up his own using a pommel horse and a car seat. Specially-designed glute-ham benches have since become staples in serious strength and conditioning facilities, and are used by different kinds of athletes of all levels.

So why are you only hearing about the glute-ham raise now? Well, for one thing, the exercise is hard to do. Almost no one who isn’t an experienced and strong lifter can just hop on a glute-ham bench and knock out perfect reps. For that reason, the glute-ham bench is hard to find in commercial gyms. It’s also not a terribly versatile piece of equipment. While you can perform traditional back extensions on it (as alluded to above), as well as situps (as CrossFitters often do), and some unconventional lower-back exercises (such as the Hatfield back raise), it doesn’t lend itself to as many exercises as an adjustable utility bench or cable station. Glute-ham benches, shall we say, are an acquired taste. But with the popularity of hardcore strength training and powerlifting, showcased in part by CrossFit, more and more people are discovering the glute-ham bench and the main exercise it was designed for. And while it may take some time and practice to build up to and master the glute-ham raise, the results are worth it for anyone who wants strong legs.

What Muscles Do Glute-Ham Raises Work?

The glute-ham raise focuses on the hamstrings, but the tension it creates on the back side of the body irradiates all the way up the chain. That means that the glutes get invovled as well (as the name of the exercise would imply), along with the spinal erectors, which run from the pelvis all the way up to the neck. The ab muscles also have to work with your erectors to brace your spine, so it doesn’t flop over while you perform the raise. And don’t be surprised if you wake up with some calf soreness the day after doing glute-ham raises the first time, since the gastrocnemius activates to assist the hamstrings in flexing the knee.

If you really want to nerd out, tell your friends that you’re training your semimembranosus, semitendonosis, and biceps femoris, aka, the leg biceps.  (These are the three hamstring muscles, from the medial side of the leg to the lateral side.) All three muscles originate on the lower portion of the pelvis and insert below the knee, which gives them a unique ability to bend the knee and extend the hips at the same time. Imagine doing a machine leg curl but without the machine to support your hips. You’d have to keep them from bending while you flexed your knees. In the glute-ham raise, you have to do this against the resistance of your bodyweight—which is far more than what you can load on a leg curl machine. Now you see why glute-hams are such a ruthless move for the hamstrings.

How to Properly Execute A Glute-Ham Raise

We asked Clifton Harski, Director of Education for the Pain-Free Performance Specialist (PPSC) certification, to explain how to do a perfect rep.

Step 1. Glute-ham benches have a foot plate that is adjustable, and many have adjustable ankle pads as well. The foot plate can slide closer to and further away from the big pad that your hips rest on, and the ankle pads can be elevated or lowered. You’ll have to take a few minutes to experiment with setups until you find one that’s comfortable.

Ultimately, you want the foot plate far enough away from the pad so that, when you climb onto the bench, your knees can hang below the pad. The height of the ankle pads should be set so that your shins are angled slightly upward when your feet touch the plate and your torso is vertical (the top of the movement).

When you slide your feet between the ankle pads, your toes should touch the foot plate. Make sure these pads are secure, as they’re about to support your bodyweight. Try to get your feet to point straight down at hip-width distance, but you may find that you need to turn your toes out a few degrees to perform the exercise. Use your hands on the big pad to push your body up until it’s vertical. Draw your ribs down, take a deep breath into your belly, and tuck your pelvis slightly so it’s perpendicular to your spine. Brace your core.

Step 2. From this tall kneeling position, slowly extend your knees to lower your body. When your torso is parallel to the floor, bend your hips slightly so that it dips a few inches below parallel. You want to use as big a range of motion as you can, but without taking tension off your hamstrings. For that reason, don’t bend so much that your head points toward the floor. And whatever you do, don’t let your lower back round. Stay rigid.

Step 3. Extend your hips and drive the balls of your feet into the foot plate, allowing your heels to rise off the plate. Push through the big pad and bend your knees to pull your body back to vertical. This should look similar to how your leg works when it’s running. (You drive off the ball of the foot while the hamstrings are extending the hips and curling the leg.)

You can cut the range of motion a little short, stopping slightly before vertical, if you like. This is a good technique for targeting pure muscle gain, as the tension won’t subside at either end of the range of motion.

The glute-ham raise is relatively simple to perform, but because it’s foreign to most people, it’s liable to pose some problems at first. If you notice your calves cramping up, it’s a sign that you’re setting up with your upper body too far in front of the pad. This is making your calves work harder than they should to pull you back up. Move the foot plate more rearward, and check to see that your knees are pointing out below the bottom of the pad at the top of the exercise. If your bench doesn’t adjust to the right position for you, fold a towel over the hip pad, or drape a rubber mat over it, to add a little more mass to the pad and position your body further back. An inch or two can make a big difference.

Another common mistake is lowering your body until your torso is perfectly parallel to the floor. This shortens the range of motion a little bit, but it’s also the hardest position in the range, and it puts you at the greatest leverage disadvantage. When you’re just starting out on glute-ham raises, it pays to lower your body a little deeper so your hips flex; then you can use a bit of stretch reflex to come out of the bottom position. This makes the lift safer and will allow you to get more reps.

Finally, avoid hyperextending your spine on the way up. As your hamstrings tire out, you’ll have a tendency to want to finish the lift by arching your back hard. This can cause injury, so remember to keep your ribs down and your core tight.

“The glute-ham raise can provide such a large overload directly to the glutes and hammies—without a substantial lower-back strength demand—that it can serve as the big strength move for those muscles for most people,” says Harski. “It can actually replace the deadlift for a period of time. It is important to train the posterior chain aggressively and often, but to do so while minimizing loading of the spine, specifically the lower vertebrae.” In other words, the glute-ham raise can play a key role in strengthening your lower body without risking injury to the lower back in the way heavy deadlifts and back squats can. While it’s a simple bodyweight movement, the glute-ham raise packs a similar punch to big barbell exercises.

Once you’re experienced with it, the glute-ham raise can be trained through several different rep ranges. You may need to use sets of 5–8 reps at first, because the exercise is so challenging, but within a few weeks, you will likely be able to do it for 8–12 reps, treating it like you would most other assistance exercises that are done with moderate weight for moderate reps. If you’re pretty strong on glute-hams, or want them to serve as a substitute for a big barbell lift such as the deadlift, you can add resistance by holding a weight plate to your chest or wrapping a band around the feet of the bench and the back of your neck, allowing you to train in the 5–8 rep range again.

As your own bodyweight becomes easier to manage, you can do glute-ham raises for sets of 20 or more reps, which can serve as a brutal finisher for your leg day.

Can I Do the Glute-Ham Raise Without A Machine?

A glute-ham bench is the best option for performing the glute-ham raise movement safely, but if you don’t have access to one, you can mimic it with other equipment. The Nordic hamstring curl, typically done with a barbell or regular utility bench, is a challenging but suitable substitute exercise.

Nordic Hamstring Curl

Step 1. Load a barbell on the floor and wrap a pad or towel around it to protect your ankles. Place a pad or mat on the floor to save your knees. Kneel on the pad and secure your ankles under the bar. (You can also use a bench that’s secured to the floor, or the spotter bar in a power rack, or have a partner hold your ankles down).

Step 2. Tuck your pelvis so it’s perpendicular to your spine. Take a deep breath into your belly, and brace your core. Have your hands ready at your sides so that you can catch yourself if you lose control on the descent. Bend your hips back so your torso leans forward a little—maintain this hip position throughout the set.

Step 3. Begin extending your knees, lowering your body toward the floor under control. When you feel you can’t maintain tension in your hamstrings anymore, let your body fall and break your fall with your hands. The range of motion won’t be great, but the extreme tension you create in your hamstrings will still make the exercise effective.

Step 4. Push off the floor and try to perform a glute-ham raise to return to the starting position.

You will probably only be able to manage a few negative reps at first (just the lowering portion of the movement). Build up to where you can perform full reps, and gradually increase your range of motion from there. (That is, aim to use less assistance from your hands over time.)

Harski says you can try using a physioball as well—the big inflatable ball most people use for situps and other ab exercises.

“Place the ball under your thighs and anchor your feet under a stable bench,” says Harski. Make sure the bench is secured to the ground—you may have to weight its feet down. The movement is done the same as the glute-ham raise and Nordic curl.

Yet another option is to use a Bosu ball, which looks like half a physioball (dome on one side, flat on the other). Kneel on the edge of the inflated dome side and press your feet against a wall, driving primarily through the balls of your feet. Perform the Nordic curl movement, using your hands on the floor to push yourself back up if you can’t make it through the full range motion.

Great GHR Alternatives

If you don’t have a glute-ham bench, and you aren’t inclined to build a DIY one, you can still work your hamstrings and glutes hard with exercises that train these muscles in a similar fashion.

Slider Hamstring Curl

Sure, you’ve done hamstring curls, and they’re nowhere near as powerful as the glute-ham raise, but they can be with a small tweak. What we miss in an isolated hamstring curl is the hip extension we get in a glute-ham raise. One easy way to bring both knee flexion and hip extension together is to do a leg curl motion with furniture sliders, which allow you to drive your feet into the floor to raise your hips first, followed by sliding your feet toward your butt for knee flexion.

Sliders can be bought in any hardware store. They’re cheap, effective, easy to store and carry in a gym bag, and have a myriad of uses. The only catch is that you need to be on a smooth waxed floor, turf, or carpet to use them. Rubber flooring can cause too much friction and make the move overly difficult or even impossible.

Step 1. Lie on your back on the floor and place the sliders under your feet. Bend your knees and slide the sliders in close to your butt. Tuck your pelvis slightly so that it’s perpendicular to the floor and take a deep breath into your belly. Brace your core. Drive the back of your arms into the floor at a 45-degree angle to your torso to add stability.

Step 2. Push through your heels to raise your hips up to full extension. Keep your core tight so you avoid arching your lower back.

Step 3. Slowly extend your knees, sliding your feet out in front of you as you lower your hips. Stop just short of where your butt would touch the floor. When your legs are extended, reverse the motion, curling your legs as you bridge your hips again.

Banded Rolling Hamstring Curl

One way around the stickiness of sliders is to use a glute-ham roller or glider. It works the same as sliders but offers a platform to rest your feet on and wheels that roll it, making it usable on any flooring.

With any sliding leg curl variation you do, start by adding reps to progress the challenge. When you can do several sets of 10 or more, you’ll need to add resistance, which you can easily do by adding an elastic exercise band around your ankles. The band will amplify the concentric portion of the exercise (pulling the heels back), and make you work to stabilize yourself on the eccentric (extending your legs).

Step 1. Attach a light band to a sturdy object and wrap the open end around the back of your heels. Lie on your back on the floor and rest your heels on the roller.

Step 2. Perform the movement as you would the sliding curl described above.

Note: There are still more options that will allow you to perform the same sliding/rolling hamstring curl movement. A suspension trainer and a physioball can also be used.

Leg-Banded Ab Rollout

You’re probably familiar with rollouts done on an ab wheel. By adding a band around your feet, you can make a standard rollout into a posterior-chain exercise that nearly replicates the glute-ham raise while you train your core at the same time. The band forces you to maintain hip extension while you flex the lower leg, just as a glute-ham raise does.

Step 1. Anchor a band to a sturdy object and place a towel, mat, or pad on the floor to protect your knees. Kneel on the pad and hook the band around the back of your ankles. Curl your heels toward you to 90 degrees, so that there’s tension on the band, and you feel your hamstrings engage. Hold an ab wheel on the floor directly under your shoulders (or use a barbell loaded with light plates so it can roll, as shown above). Your body should form a straight line from your head to your knees, with your core braced.

Step 2. Roll the wheel forward, extending your hips while maintaining a tight core and alignment between your spine and your pelvis. Maintain the isometric hold in your legs. From the end position, draw the wheel back into the floor and return to the starting position. That’s one rep.

Back Extension and Leg Curl

If you don’t have the equipment to address both knee flexion and hip extension in one solid move, performing each of the movements separately is enough to ensure that you at least don’t skip training one of the hamstrings’ key functions. Though its name is something of a misnomer, the back extension exercise done on a 45-degree back extension bench trains hip extension. Do a few sets followed by leg curls—seated, standing, or prone—and you’re giving the hamstrings the one-two punch they need to grow and strengthen to their potential.

Back Extension

Step 1. Adjust the pad of a back extension bench so that it fits in the crease of your hips when you mount the bench. Get on the bench, and secure your feet under the ankle pads. Tuck your pelvis so it’s perpendicular to your spine, and brace your core. Your body should form a long, straight line.

Step 2. Bend only at the hips to lower your torso toward the floor. Stop before you feel your lower back is about to round forward. Squeeze your glutes as you extend your hips and return to the starting position.

The post How To Properly Do Glute-Ham Raises appeared first on Onnit Academy.

The Heavy Kettlebell Swing 10x10x10 is a quick workout, and by utilizing the Kettlebell Swing, you will hit every muscle in your entire body. Perform 10 rounds of 10 reps of work. Try and complete the entire workout in less then 10 minutes. This will require that you perform approximately 10 reps every minute.

Other Exercise Info

Tip Writer: Mark de Grasse
Demonstrator: John Wolf

The post Mach 10 Workout: Heavy Kettlebell Swing 10x10x10 appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Jim “Smitty” Smith of Diesel Strength and Conditioning teamed up with the Onnit Academy to show you a quick hack to improve your hamstring stretches. By using resistant bands for stretching you can increase tension on your hamstring stretches. This is also a good method for your it band, quads, hips, adductors and abductors stretches.

Using Resistance Bands for Hamstring Stretches

When using resistance bands for hamstring stretches, many people wrap the band around their feet and just lay back on the ground, using their arms as an anchor to stretch. This can get extremely uncomfortable and does not provide the optimal stretch for your hamstring. A quick tip to fix this is to put the resistance band all the way around your torso, so you do not have to use your arms as an anchor.

Once the band is around your torso, wrap it around your foot, and create a second loop around your foot before falling back into your stretch. This position allows more tension, and lets you create different angles, creating a deeper stretch.  You can further the tension of this variation of the stretch by using your arms. This set up is much more efficient and more comfortable allowing you to get a deeper stretch of the hamstring.

The post How to Improve Your Hamstring Stretches with Jim “Smitty” Smith appeared first on Onnit Academy.

This is a demonstration of the Forward Fold Pedal Drill Bodyweight Exercise. The Forward Fold Pedal Drill Bodyweight Exercise, is a great warmup for the glutes and hamstrings before any lower body training session.

The post Forward Fold Pedal Drill Bodyweight Exercise appeared first on Onnit Academy.

The Explosive Alt-leg Body Row is the next variation of the body row. Not only are you working your upper back and conditioning, but the lower body is working extremely dynamically. Targeting the glutes and hamstrings, while building explosive power.

The post Suspension Exercise: Explosive Alt 1-Leg Body Row appeared first on Onnit Academy.

The Sandbag Back Hold Good Morning increases the perceived load of the implement by placing it high and directly on the structure of the body.  This drill will place a high demand on hamstrings to lengthen under load and is sure to provide a bit of soreness the next day with the appropriate load.

Exercise Steps

Step 1: Stand with your feet hip width apart with a slight bend at your knee, place a moderately loaded sandbag on high on your shoulders

Step 2: Keeping your back neutral to slightly extended, pull your hips back as you fold forward. Stop with your chest above parallel with the floor.

Step 3: Maintaining a strong core, return back to a standing position.

Tips & Safety: Pull yourself into the lowered position slowly with the intention of feeling the hamstrings load rather than folding forward with your shoulders.

The post Sandbag Exercise: Back Hold Good Morning appeared first on Onnit Academy.

The Sandbag High Pull is another extremely effective triple extension power developer . The high pull also hits your mid-back, rhomboids, and rear delts. And nothing will build boulder traps like high pulls! As a bonus, the high pull will hit the whole posterior chain: hamstrings, glutes, and lower back.

The post Sandbag Exercise: High Pull appeared first on Onnit Academy.

The Alternating Lunge is a fundamental bodyweight exercise increasing strength in several muscle groups including the quadriceps, gluteals, and hamstrings. By maintaining proper posture, your core will be given a great workout, as well as increasing your balance and flexibility.

Exercise Steps

Step 1: Stand up straight, slightly bending your knees.

Step 2: Step forward with one leg while maintaining your balance and squat down through your hips.

Step 3: Keep your chest and head up.

Step 4: Push yourself back to the starting position by driving through your heal.

Step 5: Repeat this movement with your other leg.

Tips & Safety: Keep your head and chest up and back straight throughout the exercise. Never allow your back to round.

The post Bodyweight Exercise: Alternating Lunge appeared first on Onnit Academy.