How to do a Nordic hamstring curl
- Kneel on a mat with your ankles held down: by a partner, under a padded bar or a loaded barbell, or on a Nordic bench.
- Keep your body straight from knees to head, hips extended and glutes tight. Hold your hands in front of your chest.
- Lean forward slowly from the knees, keeping your hips straight, and resist the fall with your hamstrings for as long as you can.
- When you can’t hold it any more, catch yourself with your hands on the floor, like the bottom of a push-up.
- Push yourself back up lightly with your hands and pull with your hamstrings to return to the start.
Cues that help
- "Straight from knee to head": the hips stay extended, no folding at the waist.
- "Slow as you can": the lowering is the exercise. Aim for 3 to 5 seconds.
- "Fight it all the way": keep braking right until your hands touch down.
- "Use your hands to come up": early on, the way back up is a push-up, not a curl.
Common mistakes
- Bending at the hips to shorten the lever. It feels easier because the hamstrings do less.
- Dropping quickly after the first few centimetres. Control as much range as you can, then catch yourself.
- Doing too much too soon. Nordics cause a lot of soreness at first; start with a few reps.
- Ankles not held firmly, so you slide and can’t lean forward with confidence.
What the studies found
A meta-analysis of 15 studies, covering 8,459 athletes in different sports, found that programmes including Nordic curls roughly halved the rate of hamstring injuries (van Dyk, Behan and Whiteley, 2019).
In the largest single trial, 942 Danish male footballers were split by team. Those who did a 10-week Nordic programme and then kept it going once a week had 3.8 acute hamstring injuries per 100 player seasons, against 13.1 in the teams who trained as usual (Petersen et al., 2011). The drop was biggest for players who had injured a hamstring before.
Both studies were in athletes, mainly in sprinting sports. For anyone else, Nordics are a demanding hamstring exercise that builds strength in a lengthened position.
Sets, reps and how to build up
- First weeks: 2 sets of 4 to 5 reps, once or twice a week. Expect sore hamstrings.
- Then: build up over about 10 weeks to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps, up to twice a week.
- After that, one session a week is a common way to keep it up; the Danish footballers continued that way through the season.
- Too hard? Hold a resistance band from above to take some of your weight, or lower yourself onto a box or a stack of mats.
Variations and alternatives
- Band-assisted Nordic: a band anchored above and across your chest takes some of the load.
- Nordic with a range limit: lower onto a box so you only work the part you control.
- Leg curl: the hamstrings at a set weight, easier to progress gradually.
- Romanian deadlift: the hamstrings worked at the hip instead of the knee.
Tracking your Nordic curls
PushBeyond logs the reps of each set, and any added weight, and charts the history of the exercise. Its muscle map counts the Nordic hamstring curl for your hamstrings.