Glute-Ham Raise
Trains the Hamstrings.
- Equipment
- A machine
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Set the footplate so your knees sit just behind the pad and your feet are secured against the rollers.
- Start upright with your body in one line from knees to head.
- Brace your stomach and squeeze your glutes to keep the hips straight.
- Lower yourself forward by straightening the knees, keeping the body in one line.
- Go as far as you can while still able to pull yourself back — for most people that is not far at first.
- Pull back up by bending the knees, driving the heels into the footplate.
Common mistakes
- Letting the hips bend on the way down. Once the hips fold, the movement becomes a back extension and the hamstrings stop having to hold the whole body up; the line from knee to shoulder is the exercise.
- Going to the bottom before you can get back up. Lowering into a position you cannot return from means the set ends with a fall onto the pad, and the useful part of this exercise is the part you can control.
- Using the arms to push back up. Hands crossed on the chest is the position; pushing off the floor turns the return into an assisted repetition, which is fine as a step but should be a decision.
- Expecting it to feel like a leg curl. A leg curl bends the knee against a pad; this bends the knee against the whole weight of the body, which is a much larger demand at the same joint.