WHY TRAIN NORDIC CURLS FOR HAMSTRING GAINS?
Aren't Romanian Deadlifts better for building bigger hamstrings?
You see me do a lot of Nordic curls.
Why have I made them a training life goal?
Because I need ways to challenge my hamstrings hard without depending on the hip-heavy exercises that repeatedly aggravate my injuries.
I have had several hamstring tears and one surgery.
Good mornings, heavily loaded Romanian deadlifts and other exercises that place a large demand on hip extension—and on the proximal hamstring attachment at my ischial tuberosity—are now mostly off-limits for me.
That does not mean I cannot train hard.
It means I have to work different functions, angles and ranges.
The Nordic curl allows me to create a demanding hamstring stimulus through knee flexion.
When my lower legs are anchored and I lower my body forward while keeping my hips extended, my hamstrings must resist my body weight as the knees extend. My body becomes the lever, and the demand around the knee becomes extremely high.
That is what makes the exercise so difficult.
In terms of challenge and mastery—not because it is biomechanically the same movement—the Nordic curl has become my equivalent of the deadlift.
I have also never had an ideal Nordic setup.
My shins are not supported horizontally, and I do not have the secure ankle, foot and heel support provided by a proper Nordic station.
That changes my leverage and makes an already difficult exercise even harder to control.
So I work with what I have.
I use resistance bands for assistance.
I perform heavy eccentrics, shorter-range repetitions at the top and partial descents toward a bench.
I overload the ranges I can control instead of pretending that only a perfect full repetition counts.
I also perform what is called a “poor man’s glute-ham raise" but again, I adapted to my own versions of it.
Guess why?
Too much straight back hip extension becomes the same issue for me as deadlifts, good mornings etc. Unless I really flex my lumbars and stay tall, I feel it higher up in my hamstrings, about 5 inches from the sit bones.
I am still experimenting the way I set this up for safe loading, it's very easy to forget to be cautious because they feel so good!
By allowing more hip and spinal flexion instead of keeping my body completely straight, I change the leverage. For me, that variation makes the area around my proximal hamstring attachment less provocative and allows me to reach a deeper range through the knee without forcing myself through a position the injured area does not tolerate well.
It is not the same variation or the same stimulus.
That is the point.
I find my safe spots and train them hard. By hard I mean I train to gain more muscle and that means with all my body's decades of experience it takes thinking and calculating like a Master Genius to create ways that make my muscles grow.
I can't train with lighter reps for those Deadlifts and good mornings etc, the problem is where the overloading takes place on my body.
Now if I hadn't had that issue you bet I'd work all the rep ranges and use various ways to reach muscle fatigue and elicit new musclew gains. This would be the easy way to build and I love high rep work! But, body says no, so that is why I've let them go.
Regular leg curls have value, but the Nordic curl provides a level of hamstring training that is more meaningful to me.
I do not want all my hamstring training confined to work that is lighter than what my body can safely handle.
I train my glutes and hip extension separately. Not that it works to isolate out muscle groups like that, but you get the point.
It's like doing biceps curls for biceps and train back knowing biceps will be involved.
One of my 'Pauline special moves' is a supine straight-leg glute clench, but it's basically a glute bridge on the floor with straight legs, with the feet on a bench, or on a dense foam roller.
I do them both unilaterally and bilaterally and they're my safe glute builder for training the glutes in hip extension.
I use my supine straight-leg glute plank and carefully selected ranges and angles on back extensions.
I choose the positions in which I can create tension without repeatedly provoking the same injury.
I listen to my body.
I work the angles.
I overload what I can overload.
And I stop demanding that my body perform according to an old plan that no longer fits it.
My hamstrings feel better than they have in years. But you bet, that's not all the time. If I forget to stay clear from my old time favorite leg exercises I end up limping up the stairs.
Case in point, a few months ago I suddenly wanted to do lunges and...I did not listen to my body's warning signals. It was so much fun I really acted like an idiot and took the chance! Oh, I had to suffer for ignoring my body's warnings. I remember my inner 'voice' telling me 'don't do it. Don't do it. I am warning you now. Second time. OK BAM, I told you'. LOL....
Now I'm still working around this, my squat training is therefore pretty non-existent since they too trigger pain in these areas if I already have a flareup in old injuries.
I'm grateful there are leg extensions and reverse Nordics, the latter one I can not even do, so that is another leg day challenge I use to stimulate not annihilate my body.
I can train hard, enjoy the challenge and continue building without automatically returning to the exercises that have repeatedly caused setbacks.
Is this identical to loading a heavy hip hinge for years?
No.
It is not supposed to be.
The most effective exercise on paper is not effective for me if repeatedly performing it takes me out of training.
Everything is fun, all one size fits all kinda way and easy until you get injured.
Then you discover whether you can adapt—or whether you are so attached to your old exercises that you would rather keep breaking yourself than find another way forward.
Training is not only about achieving one physical result.
My greater goal is to enjoy my training life.
I fail when I turn training into a compulsory attachment to my past.
Instead, I ask:
What do I want?
A strong body with muscular hamstrings.
On what terms and within what limitations?
These.
Can I turn those limitations into opportunities?
Yes.
Good.
Now I have a way.
My way.
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