Jeez how hard are these? I don't know if I'm starting them out wrong or something, but earlier I tried to do the "natural" glute-ham raise, I can only bend my back up, which is not part of the movement. I think I'm gonna have to practice this one... any tips? Does it matter where your partner holds your feet?
Well, think about it this way. Essentially what you are doing with this exercise, if I understand the execution of the final portion correctly, is leg curling your entire bodyweight minus the weight of your two lower legs from the knee down. Rather than your shins raising up, your body does instead. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell can't leg curl, say, 165-170 pounds (I weigh around 200 and I don't do leg curls anyway). I think I've seen guys start out training this movement by doing negatives, or short range partials, of the final "leg curl" portion.
I'd actually like to include this exercise in my routine too, but I work out at home and haven't figured out a way of doing them with the equipment I currently have.
darkmind...i've done them with assistance on the lat pulldown machine. you kneel on the bench facing away from the stack with your feet under the pad your knees are usually under for pulldowns. then you grasp the bar and go down. just be careful...i didn't use enough weight the first time and went plummeting down...lol. if you need a better explanation..let me know..i'll find a video.
Homne workout suggestion for a glute ham raise: try using a swiss ball (think you just call them gym balls~ the large one you sit on for abs training). Then place this on a workout bench. Reach around the ball and grip the bench (you may want to pad the are you grip) Then placing your chest on the ball (maintianing contact from mid chest to lower abdomen) the perform your glute ham raise.
It takes a while to do this one and often your arms burn out before your glutes etc but after a few weeks boy do you notice the difference doing it. This and the wood choppers are my faavourite ever exercises for guaranteed results
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BFG
"The time for talking has passed, actions are speaking louder than words."
The video that Galya posted is a little different than the way that I do them. I could probably knock out 10 reps easily with the accessory that they were using. I brace my feet under the lat pull leg brace, keeping my body mostly straight, I lower my chest to a bench, then I raise myself back up. By the fourth rep I need to do a slight push off to get my chest off the pad. They are VERY difficult. I usually do them 5X5 and they ALWAYS get me.
Yeah, JP, I use that accesory at the gyms I go to, and GHR's aren't really that tough for me, go figure. I guess chalk it up to training, because a couple of years ago I could only get a few reps.
These have been great for my speed/athletic training for baseball.
BFG, I think I can picture what you're saying, but that's not a GHR, is it? Isn't that more of a reverse hyper?
it covers both but is a ghr predominant when raising legs parallel (with weight in time) you are lifting them from the floor and then it is only the latter stages it moves into hyper extension mode. A two in one effective exercise (searching for a link for you as old vid clip as had dissapeared)
__________________
BFG
"The time for talking has passed, actions are speaking louder than words."
I actually do something similar , JP. I hook my heels under the pulldown station support, kneel on the floor (with a pad under my knees) and go to the floor and back. Mostly negatives, with a push on the way back up.
And if I had that gadget in the video, I could knock out quite a few. With the "natural" GHRs, there's nothing to supports your knees like that.
sort of like ?
In white water canoeing.. we kneel with our feet hooked under the bench.. and very often bend way forwords to one side or the other to to go get the water further.
It worked our glutes and hamstrings alot.. and not everyone could do it.. but I always had fun with it [img]smile.gif[/img]
I've been trying to do the natural ones, off and on for a while, but I can only do the negatives because it kills my knees going back up! I've been doing plate drags for the "concentric" that I miss out on.
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