Nordic Curl Progression: A Guide for Stronger Hamstrings

Nordic curl progression can be challenging. Even though it is an incredible hamstring exercise and totally worth the effort, Nordic curl is a hard exercise by nature and trying to improve on it can prove to be tricky, especially if you’re at a level where you cannot do one full rep yet.

There's no need to worry, though. In this article, we’ll teach everything you need to know on how to get your Nordic curl progression going. You will learn the right technique, the setup required, and some tips to adjust the difficulty level. Keep on reading!

What Are The Benefits of Nordic Curls

The Nordic curls work directly on your hamstrings. This muscle group is made up of 3 different muscles: the bicep femoris, the semitendinosus, and the semimembranosus. Together, they are responsible for the extension of the hip and the flexion of the knee.

Additionally, the Nordic curl also works the glutes (albeit way less than the hamstrings), making it a double duty exercise.

Exercising your hamstrings and making sure they’re strong and healthy can bring several benefits such as:

1. Improved Athletic Performance

The hamstrings play a big part in the complex mechanics of movement. Strengthening them can improve your sprinting speed and explosive power, so practitioners of sports such as soccer, football, and track and field greatly benefit from them.

Also, conditioned hamstrings can help you jump higher, which is a point for volleyball and basketball players.

2. Reduced Risk Of Injuries

It is no secret that working out your muscles can reduce the risk of injuries, especially if you’re properly stretching, warming up, and working on joint mobility.

However, studies suggest that specifically doing Nordic curls can help reduce the rate of hamstring injuries across multiple sports in different athletes by 51%. This information alone can secure the Nordic curl in the workout routine of any athlete.

3. Improved Muscle Balance

Strengthening your hamstrings promotes your leg muscle balance since you probably already have quadriceps stronger than your hamstrings. This is positive because muscle imbalances can lead to injuries. Besides, a balanced physique just looks aesthetically better, strong legs go well with those coveted V-lines or a heart-shaped butt.

How to Do a Nordic Curl

Before you focus on your Nordic curl progression you must first make sure that you’re doing it right. This will speed up your progression and ensure you don’t get hurt when trying harder variations of the exercise.

1. Setup

A good setup is crucial to executing a good Nordic curl. You’re going to need a soft surface, like a bench, pillow, or mattress, and an anchor to your ankles.

The anchor is the hardest part to set up. Unless you spend a lot of money on specific Nordic curl equipment or your gym has it, you’ll have to improvise. You can:

• Ask a friend to hold your ankle in place.
• Use the thigh cushioning of a lat pulldown machine.
• Use a weighted barbell.
• Use the Smith machine.
• Use the metal stall bars from your gym.

All these options have their pros and cons and it's up to you to find which one suits your needs better.

2. Execution

Execution is key in order to perform any exercise and the Nordic curls are no different. Check out the step-by-step below.

1. Kneel on the soft surface and your anchor holding your ankles in place behind you.
2. Brace your core and squeeze your glutes before slowly lowering your body towards the floor. Remember to keep your spine straight. Your body should form a straight line from your knees to the top of your head.
3. When you’re about to hit the ground catch yourself with your hands and go back to the starting position.

Nordic Curl Progression: How to Make It Easier?

If you’re new to exercising, you probably can’t properly do one rep of the Nordic curls, and that’s totally fine, it is a hard exercise after all. Here are some ways to make the exercise easier so you can significantly enhance your Nordic curl progression for optimal results.

Decrease The Range of Motion

Decreasing the range of motion is an excellent way to make this exercise easier. While doing the exercise, you can stack objects in front of you so there’s a shorter path between the start and the end of the rep.

Over time you should decrease the height of the objects in front of you gradually until you can do one full rep.

Allow Your Hips to Bend

In the ideal form, you should maintain your body straight as much as possible. However, if you can’t properly do it right now, it’s ok to allow your hips to bend a little so the exercise becomes easier on your hamstrings.

Use a Resistance Band

If you can find a way to secure a resistance band behind and above you (like tying it on the lat pulldown machine, for example), you can pass it over your chest and let it assist you in lowering your body and coming back up. Over time you can choose weaker resistance bands until you can do one rep without assistance.

Nordic Curl Progression: How to Make It Harder?

Now, if you’re on the other end of the spectrum and regular Nordic curls are not cutting it for you anymore, there are a couple of ways we can make it more challenging:

Increase Range of Motion

If your Nordic curl reps are not putting your body parallel to the ground, there are still ways to increase the exercise’s range of motion. The closer you get to that parallel to the ground golden standard the more effective the Nordic curl will be.

In contrast, if you’re doing the Nordic curl on an elevated surface, you shouldn’t go over a 90º angle since it doesn’t increase hamstring engagement and can lead to injuries.

Add Additional Weights to The Exercise

If you’re already going parallel to the ground with ease, you can increase the difficulty by doing the exercise with weights. It should ideally be a plate or a dumbbell and you need to hold it close to your chest so it doesn’t affect your balance too much.

The sky is the limit here. You can do progressive overload and execute the exercise with increasing heavier weight. But please, be careful and do not hurt yourself trying to hold more than you can.

The Takeaway

Nordic curls are a stellar way to strengthen your hamstrings. It is a challenging exercise that offers several ways to be done, making it a flexible option suited for all levels of fitness. Whether you’re an experienced weightlifter or a complete beginner on your fitness journey, you should definitely add it to your workout routine.

Follow the tips listed in this article and you’ll be seeing progress in your Nordic curls faster than you think.

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