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Glute Ham Raise - Leg Exercise

By Elliott | April 27, 2008

Main Muscle Worked: Hamstrings
Other Muscles Worked: Quadriceps, Calves, Glutes
Equipment: Barbell
Mechanics Type: Compound

There are two major style of a Glute Ham Raise; (a) the “natural” style, or with (b) a dedicated machine.

The “natural” glute ham is no walk in the park and is one of the nastiest of all weight room exercises there is. It will give you a powerful set of hams and a new level of ferocity to your training. This is not a complicated exercise but a brutal one. Make sure you set yourself up with sufficient padding under the knee so that the ankle knee joint is parallel to the ground and toes are dug into the floor with someone holding your feet down.

Keep the hips and abs squeezed tight as you pull yourself down with control and do not bend forward. As you invariably collapse to the ground have your hands meet the ground and push off where to the point where you can pull yourself back up using your hamstrings. One particularly devilish approach is to hold statically a few inches from the top for 15-60 seconds and then drop fast eccentrically.

Hopefully your gym has a dedicated Glute-Ham machine and with the growing popularity of this machine, many are adding them. Set the machine up so the knees are no more than a few inches from the pad with your hips pushed forward. From parallel position, rise up by pushing against the toe-plate and pull with the hamstrings.

As you get better with exercise you will invariably want to add resistance and one of the best ways to do such is by wearing an Xvest which will distribute the load equally throughout the movement but also not contribute to poor posture as other mediums will.

Bodybuilding.com

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