Working up to Natural Leg Curls and GHRs; Hamstring Prehab

Hi everyone,

I'm new to gymnastics training and I have recently acquired Coach Sommer's Building The Gymnastic Body. Particularly, I am interested in learning how to perform the Natural Leg Curl exercise. However, as things currently stand, I have problems with my right hamstring and cannot go even through 1/4 of the range of motion that the exercise demands; I simply fall to the floor.

Can anyone suggest any exercise progressions that will prehab and strengthen my hamstrings for this exercise? I would prefer some body-weight exercise not involving rather than ones using weight.

Many thanks.

Spotting with bands is good, but you need long bands like iron woody.

Glute-Ham bridges. You'd probably need to add weights to these as with BW they are too easy. Even on a single leg, they can be easy.

-sometimes we have the boys put their feet in a frisbee and do sort of a glute-ham bridge curl. It's not bad, but it's not too hard either. Remember to focus on keeping your hips up.

Bare in mind, a natural leg curl is extremely daunting to most people. I don't have very good ROM, though one of my boys can nearly go to the floor. No one is like that in the gym. I've yet to ever see it before.

Our HC has the girls place two panel mats on the side of themselves as they do them. Generally they start off the floor with an assist of a pushup and then engaging their hamstrings.

perform half GHRs as described in the book. This will allow you to slowly add depth to the movement.

just agreeing with the half GHR recommendation. I started with that and then natural hamstring curl negatives and now i'm close to a full one.

Did these last night after finishing 3 sets of weighted SLS. We'll see if my legs function tomorrow. I may be doing these on different days from now on.

I've done them before, but I did 3 repetitions where I lowered down, did the bow, then pulled back up instead of performing all the bows and then pulling. Doing it the correct way probably yields a longer TimeUnderTension.

Blairbob said:

Glute-Ham bridges. You'd probably need to add weights to these as with BW they are too easy. Even on a single leg, they can be easy.

-sometimes we have the boys put their feet in a frisbee and do sort of a glute-ham bridge curl. It's not bad, but it's not too hard either. Remember to focus on keeping your hips up.

Bare in mind, a natural leg curl is extremely daunting to most people. I don't have very good ROM, though one of my boys can nearly go to the floor. No one is like that in the gym. I've yet to ever see it before.

Our HC has the girls place two panel mats on the side of themselves as they do them. Generally they start off the floor with an assist of a pushup and then engaging their hamstrings.

This is great advice. Thank you. I'll try that. Just a few things though.

What is BW?

Can you post something that shows this "frisbee . . . glute-ham curl" motion. I am having trouble understanding?

I've tried the balance ball exercise Hamstring Curls (

Also, how is the Hamstring Curl different from a Glute_Ham bridge?

Many thanks!!!

nickvb said:

perform half GHRs as described in the book. This will allow you to slowly add depth to the movement.

I have not tried these yet. I'll try it an see how it goes. Thank you very much:)

the glute bridge with one leg on a stability ball is also quite a challenging hamstring exercise. Just saying.

BW=bodyweight

balance ball exercise Hamstring Curl

that's pretty much the same thing with the frisbee except your feet are much lower and the drag on the surface is much less. carpet has less drag than the mats, but I made a sort of smear on the mats that they haven't noticed but probably don't want to see.

I think adding some bands to the exercise might be a way to make it harder.

Razz said:

the glute bridge with one leg on a stability ball is also quite a challenging hamstring exercise. Just saying.

Thanks:) I'll look into this one as well.

Blairbob said:

BW=bodyweight

balance ball exercise Hamstring Curl

that's pretty much the same thing with the frisbee except your feet are much lower and the drag on the surface is much less. carpet has less drag than the mats, but I made a sort of smear on the mats that they haven't noticed but probably don't want to see.

I think adding some bands to the exercise might be a way to make it harder.

Thank you:)