Nordic Hamstring Curl
Trains the Hamstrings.
- Equipment
- Bodyweight
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Kneel on a pad with your feet held down — under a loaded barbell, a partner's hands, or a secure bench.
- 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 yourself forward slowly by straightening the knees, resisting the whole way.
- Go as far as you can control, then catch yourself with your hands on the floor.
- Push off the floor just enough to get back to a position you can pull from, and finish the return with the hamstrings.
Common mistakes
- Falling rather than lowering. The lowering half is the exercise, and most people can only control the first twenty or thirty degrees at the start. Going slowly through what you can control and catching the rest is the way this progresses.
- 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 with something that can move. A partner or a heavily loaded barbell is the anchor; a light bar or an unsecured bench lifts at exactly the wrong moment.
- Doing it with sore hamstrings from the last session. This exercise produces a large amount of muscle damage from the lowering half, and its soreness arrives late and lasts.