The Nordic curl is not for the faint of heart… or hamstrings. Don’t be misled by the fact that this move is “merely” a bodyweight exercise. Once you truly dive into this move, thoughts of adding weight will likely leave your mind. Instead, you’ll have to focus on one rep at a time — that’s how much focus, strength, and stability the Nordic curl requires.
Imagine an ab rollout, but make it for your hamstrings. Here, you’ll discover how to lower yourself forward to the ground with just the strength of your hammies as a partner or stable anchor holds your ankles. Can’t yet fathom it? We’ll give you alternatives to build up to your first Nordic curl rep, too.
Editor’s Note: The content on BarBend is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. When starting a new training regimen and/or diet, it is always a good idea to consult with a trusted medical professional. We are not a medical resource. The opinions and articles on this site are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional.
How to Do the Nordic Curl
- Step One — Grab an exercise mat and lay it on the floor near an anchor point for your ankles. You’ll need enough space to comfortably land in a push-up. Assume a tall kneeling position, resting on your knees with your hips fully extended and an upright posture. Use a partner or stable anchor to place your ankles under. This is your starting position.
- Step Two — Stabilize your entire body by flexing your quads, glutes, and core simultaneously. Hold your arms crossed at your chest and isometrically contract your lats and upper back. Flex your hamstrings. Generate full body tension just like you do before a deadlift.
- Step Three — Maintain full body tension and slowly begin to lean forward, using your hamstrings to keep you stable while going down. Lower yourself towards the floor as slow and controlled as possible. Once you hit a point of no return, catch yourself in a push-up position using your arms. Resist free-falling as much as possible.
- Step Four — From the push-up position, maintain full body tension and push yourself back to the beginning. Use your hamstrings to pull yourself while you push with your upper body. Stabilize in your tall kneeling position before initiating a new repetition.
Why Do It: The Nordic curl is a powerhouse bodyweight-only hamstring exercise that will isolate your hamstrings while also requiring strong, stable glutes and a solid core.
Equipment Needed: Exercise Mat; partner or a stable padded anchor (gym railing or machine).
Nordic Curl Variations
The Nordic curl is a very challenging exercise. You can use these variations to help you build the strength you need to perform unassisted reps.
Dowel-Assisted Nordic Curl
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- Assume the standard Nordic curl starting position, with a dowel secured in both hands.
- Plant the dowel on the floor approximately where you would land in your push-up position at the end of a repetition.
- Using the dowel as a leverage point, slowly descend into your Nordic curl bottom position.
- Use the dowel to reverse out of the bottom position by climbing with your hands as you contract your hamstrings.
Band-Assisted Nordic Curl
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- Wrap a band around an anchor point located behind you.
- Wrap the other side of the band around your body, securing it in your hands.
- Perform the Nordic curl as normal, using the band to lighten the load as you descend.
Stability Ball Rollout
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- Grab an exercise stability ball and assume the tall kneel position. Place the ball directly in front of you.
- Lean onto the ball, supporting yourself with your forearms and a full body brace.
- Descend into the stability ball rollout using eccentric control with your hamstrings and a massive core brace.
- Pull yourself back to the starting position with a hamstring contraction while maintaining contact with your forearms on the ball.
Nordic Curl Alternatives
Not ready or able to tackle the Nordic curl? Or maybe you’re simply searching for some variety. Here are several useful alternatives to achieve a similar effect using a few different techniques should the Nordic curl be off the table.
Glute-Ham Raise (GHR)
[Read More: Glute Ham Raises Alternatives]
- Secure yourself in the glute-ham raise machine placing your ankles under the pad with the thigh pad positioned right above your knees.
- Brace your entire body and cross your arms at your chest. Begin a controlled descent using an eccentric hamstring contraction.
- Pull yourself back to the starting position by flexing your knees with your hamstrings. Maintain full body stability throughout the range of motion.
Romanian Deadlift
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- Using a pair of dumbbells or a barbell, stand tall and brace your core, lats, glutes, and hamstrings,
- Slightly bend your knees and slowly slide your hips backwards to engage your posterior chain.
- Keep sending your hips back until you find a deep stretch in your glutes and hamstrings. Allow your chest to lower without rounding, maintaining a full body brace.
- Return to the starting position by keeping your core engaged and flexing your hamstrings and glutes.
Lying Hamstring Curl
[Read More: Glute Ham Raise vs Back Extension]
- Lie down on the hamstring curl machine, lining the ankle roller up with the base of your ankles and the peak of the machine’s pad aligned with your hips.
- Grab the handles and pull yourself snug against the machine. Brace your entire body.
- Curl your legs by flexing your hamstrings. Continue curling until your knees are bent as much as possible before controlling your descent back to the starting position.
Who Should Do the Nordic Curl
The Nordic curl is a common sight amongst athletes of many different sports, but strength athletes may particularly fond of them.
- Sports Athletes: Research suggests that including the Nordic curl in your training is correlated with better injury risk reductions amongst athletes. (1) Although it is impossible to eliminate risk, the Nordic curl does seem like a good choice to involve in athletic programming — perhaps especially for sports that require sprinting, jumping, and quickly changing directions.
- Strength Athletes: When your entire training program is centered around lifting the heaviest load possible, eventually you’ll need to manage volume and load. The Nordic curl is a great way to train your posterior chain and overload the hamstrings without weight. As your strength programming advances, keep the Nordic curl top of mind for load management and recovery.
- Calisthenics Enthusiasts: Nordic curls fit the bill for travel workouts or athletes that generally emphasize bodyweight moves. They deliver a massive posterior chain challenge by removing the leverage point at the knee that you may benefit from during a glute-ham raise. This subtle difference increases the challenge to a startling degree, giving you an on-the-run exercise that’s able to be performed nearly anywhere for a huge level of stimulus.
Nordic Curl Sets and Reps
- For Skill Development: Perform three to five sets of two to three reps, leaving one to two reps in the tank each set. Rest for two to three minutes between sets to fully recover.
- For Strength: Do five sets of five reps. Rest for at least three minutes between sets and consider adding resistance when necessary to stay within one repetition of failure.
- For Muscle Mass: Perform two to four sets of eight to 12 repetitions, either of full Nordic curls or the assisted variations. Rest about two minutes between sets and aim to get zero to one repetition from muscle failure each time.
Benefits of the Nordic Curl
There’s something alluring about such a challenging lower body exercise that doesn’t require weight plates or a dumbbell set.
Posterior Chain Strength
Simply removing the knee anchor point that you would find during a standard glute ham raise transforms it into the Nordic curl — and greatly amplifies the challenge. Given that the leverage point at the knee no longer exists, your posterior chain is placed under the magnifying glass.
If your hamstrings or even your glutes and core have any weaknesses, this exercise will find them and improve on them.
Boosts Proprioception
Points of contact with the ground or a machine help with stability, but also proprioception. The larger your base of support or points of reference, the easier it is to stabilize your body as you exercise.
The Nordic curl only has one or two points of reference — your knees on the ground and the anchor point at your ankle. Beyond that, it’s on you to contract every muscle and control every joint as you float through space on each repetition.
Calisthenic Overload
Calisthenics training is an amazing tool because bodyweight moves require no external load and minimal set-up. Still, some calisthenics exercises get relatively simple relatively quickly. Not so with the Nordic curl.
The eccentric contraction and long levers used to keep you stable throughout the posterior chain start and stay challenging. Progressive overload with Nordic curls is as simple as manipulating the tempo you use throughout the range of motion or desperately clawing for one more repetition. You’ll be milking this exercise for the long haul.
Muscles Worked by the Nordic Curl
The Nordic curl is a full-body calisthenic exercise, but the major players you’ll notice development in are the glutes, hamstrings, and core.
- Glutes: Your glutes are locked up in a tight contraction to control your position throughout this move. As it holds up your isometric training, the strength and endurance of your glute muscles are certainly a focal point of successful Nordic curl training.
- Hamstrings: The main movements during this exercise are knee flexion and extension. The hamstrings are responsible for the eccentric control as you lower yourself into full knee extension. On the upswing, your concentric shortening of the hamstrings is how you flex all the way back to the starting position.
- Core: Stabilizing your joints and only moving through knee flexion and extension requires a whole lot of body tension. Everything from your abdominals to your lats and even calves need to be tight. Bracing your core is essential to lock yourself in a stable position.
Common Nordic Curl Mistakes
The Nordic curl is an extremely beneficial, but challenging exercise. It’s common for certain mistakes to pop up that likely contribute to the hot-and-cold nature of its popularity amongst lifters. Try to avoid too much volume, losing control of your reps, and not training it enough to see results.
Too Much Volume
Volume is a calculation of your [sets times repetitions] per day (sometimes with load tossed in there, too). The sneaky thing about volume is that as you increase the number of sets and repetitions on a day, you run the risk of a breakdown in technique.
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With an exercise like the Nordic curl, a breakdown in technique immediately and harshly reduces the benefits you get from performing it. Stay in the pocket with your volume per day, only select set and repetition schemes that you’re able to complete with pristine technique.
Lack of Control
Although it is common to explosively push yourself back to the starting position, control throughout each part of the range of motion is the real benefit of your Nordic curl. Tempo on your eccentric portion, only giving out once absolutely necessary, is best practice.
If you find yourself sprinting through each repetition with limited control through the concentric (or especially eccentric) portion of the lift, you’ll be missing out on a ton of gains.
Not Enough Frequency
As you develop your Nordic curl, training with increased workout frequency is a great strategy. In order to map out the skill as soundly as possible, train with smaller gaps between sessions. This means managing total volume per session to avoid undue soreness, but allowing yourself two sessions with Nordic curls per week is likely going to be more effective for most people than only once per week.
Curls, Curls, Curls
Nordic curls never seem to fully disappear from gyms. Their staying power makes sense, as they’re an immensely powerful posterior chain developer with limited set-up and equipment requirements. Being able to throw down a massive hamstring workout regardless of the situation is hard to argue against.
That said, lean into the move’s variations and alternatives when you need to build up to the full Nordic, or even simply train some of its components in isolation. Regardless of your goals, the Nordic curl is always there for your program, prowling in the background waiting for your attention once more.
FAQs
Here are some common bits of information to help clarify some Nordic curl points.
Using variations that reduce the challenge (such as resistance band assistance) is a great way to build up your technique and strength. Alternatively, break down the Nordic curl into parts, using more scalable exercises such as the Romanian deadlift or lying leg curl machine to help you along.
The Nordic curl is a very challenging exercise. For most individuals, training it first thing in your workout may a good idea to hit it while you’re the freshest. Depending on your workout split and goals, it may also be beneficial to add it on your upper body days. This way you get the skills training on your Nordic curl without adding fatigue to your lower body during leg day.
Regardless, make sure that your muscles are warm and ready do go — you don’t want to try this exercise before a thorough dynamic warm-up.
As with any exercise, you’ll want to increase the challenge over time to see continued gains. Progressive overload for your Nordic curls may look like increasing tempo control on each repetition, adding repetitions or sets, or increasing frequency per week.
References
- van Dyk, N., Behan, F. P., & Whiteley, R. (2019). Including the Nordic hamstring exercise in injury prevention programmes halves the rate of hamstring injuries: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 8459 athletes. British journal of sports medicine, 53(21), 1362–1370. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2018-100045
Featured Image: TheProactiveAthlete / Youtube
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