Nordic Hamstring Negative
Kneel, anchor your ankles, and lower your torso toward the floor as slowly as you can possibly control it, then push back up with your hands. That's the whole move, and it's brutal.
Why it works
This is the single best-evidenced exercise on this entire site for preventing hamstring injury, full stop. Meta-analyses of team-sport athletes found that programs including Nordic curls roughly cut hamstring injury rates in half, an effect size that's genuinely unusual for any preventive exercise anywhere. It works because it loads the hamstring eccentrically, lengthening under tension, at long muscle lengths, which is precisely the situation your hamstring is in the moment it tears during a sprint. Almost nobody can do the full range the first time they try this, and that's expected, not a failure on your part. The useful work happens in the slow lowering, and catching yourself with your hands at the bottom is part of the exercise, not you cheating at it. Expect serious soreness for two or three days after your first session. Start with one set. You'll thank yourself later.
How to do it
- Kneel on a cushion or folded towel with your ankles anchored under something immovable, or held firmly by a partner.
- Hold your body in one straight line from knee to head, with the glutes squeezed so you do not fold at the hips.
- Lower your torso toward the floor as slowly as you can, resisting the whole way. Fighting gravity is the entire point.
- When you can no longer control the descent, catch yourself on your hands.
- Push back to the start with your arms, then reset your line and repeat. Add repetitions only once the soreness from the previous session has fully gone.
Dose: 2 to 3 sets of 3 to 6 repetitions, 1 to 2 times a week. Start with one set of three, no matter how easy that sounds right now.
⚠ This is educational content for discussion with a clinician, not medical advice or a prescription. This causes severe delayed soreness if you do too much too soon, so start with a single set of three. Skip it with a current hamstring injury, or knee pain that kneeling aggravates. Make sure the anchor genuinely cannot move.
