One of the most popular questions our coaches are asked frequently during personal training sessions in London is: “How to deal with hamstring injuries?”. Today, one of our senior personal trainers shares a quick and effective health hack.
Hamstring injuries happen quite a lot with most of us, especially when it comes to kicking exercises, sprinting or just playing a very intense game of football. All of the following activities often result into lengthening and stretching your hamstrings beyond their usual limit.
The hack here is to train your hamstrings to become stronger when lengthening.
Here’s how you can do this.
Enter the Nordic Hamstring Exercise.
Its effectiveness is scientifically based and is said to help prevent around two-thirds of all hamstring injuries.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to do it with a partner:
- Kneel on the ground and ask your partner to hold your ankles from behind.
- Slowly and smoothly lean forward. Your chest should get closer to the ground.
- Use your hamstrings to “put the brakes” on your forward momentum to the point when you can no longer resist the gravity.
- Put your arms forward to stop you from falling.
- Let your chest touch the ground and next push yourself upright to repeat the exercise once again.
If you are a newbie, try to make at least five reps at a time. Feeling more fit? Try and shoot up to 30 reps at least once a week, especially before your next football game.
If you don’t have a partner to help you, try to use a heavy barbell, a couch or a table you can get your feet under to fixate them.
Final word of wisdom: give yourself enough healing time between sessions to recover.
Nordic Hamstring Exercise is now part of our personal training in London. Contact us today to get to know more about different training sessions we offer!