Floor Glute-Ham Raise
Trains the Hamstrings.
- Equipment
- Bodyweight
- Mechanic
- Isolation
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Kneel on a mat with your feet held down by a partner or wedged under something heavy.
- Start upright with your body in one line from knees to head, hands at your chest.
- Brace your stomach and squeeze your glutes so the hips stay straight.
- Lower forward slowly by straightening the knees, resisting all the way.
- Go as far as you can control, then catch yourself with your hands.
- Push off just enough to return to a position you can pull from, and finish with the hamstrings.
Common mistakes
- Falling rather than lowering. The lowering half is the exercise, and most people control only the first twenty or thirty degrees at first.
- Bending at the hips to make it easier. Folding at the hip shortens the lever and takes the hamstrings out; the body stays in one line from knee to head.
- Anchoring the feet under something that lifts. A partner or a heavily loaded barbell is an anchor; a light bench is not.
- Doing it with hamstrings still sore from the last session. The lowering half produces a large amount of muscle damage, and its soreness arrives late and lasts.