Today's guest post comes from Cressey Sports Performance - Massachusetts coach, Josh Zall.
The 1-Leg Supine Bridge with Hamstrings Catch is an exercise we’ve been prescribing more frequently of late with a lot of our more advanced athletes at Cressey Sports Performance. A dynamic “drop-catch” offers an array of benefits for all athletes regardless of their chosen athletic endeavor.
Important Considerations:
When an athlete who is young, untrained, or generally hypermobile dives into this movement without the ability to adequately decelerate, it can be too challenging to drive a valuable adaptation. For an exercise that starts in a static position and quickly transitions into a dynamic movement that requires coordination, making sure the athlete is proficient in general hamstring strength and motor control is key.
The ability to get into and hold a single-leg bridge is the only true prerequisite for prescribing this movement in a program.
Benefits:
The exposure to a co-contraction is one of the biggest prizes of this movement. A co-contraction is a simultaneous contraction of the agonist and antagonist muscles to stabilize a joint against opposing forces, and the ability to create a co-contraction is a key for joint and connective tissue health for athletes. With hamstring strains plaguing athletes of all sports, having the ability to create a unilateral co-contraction and create concentric activity with the hamstring in a lengthened position is vital for lower limb health (think initial contact and take-off phase of a sprint; front foot strike in a pitcher’s delivery; or any side shuffles).
Something important to keep in mind is that co-contractions are not a central nervous system phenomenon, so exposing your body to situations where you need to co-contract while fatigued is important for connective tissue health. With that being said, this is an exercise that I typically program for an athlete as accessory work or in a movement (sprint/agility) day in their program - usually for 4-8 reps per set.
A simple way to regress to this movement would be to not allow for excessive knee extension on the catch. The opposite would be true when progressing this movement -- “catching” at end-range or close to end-range knee extension would increase the difficulty.
Enjoy!
About the Author
Josh Zall serves as a Strength and Conditioning coach at Cressey Sports Performance. He earned a Bachelor's Degree in Sport and Movement Science at Salem State University, and has internship coaching experience from both CSP-MA and Saint John's Preparatory Academy in Danvers, MA.
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Today's guest post comes from Cressey Sports Performance - Massachusetts Director of Performance, John O'Neil.
Today, I'm gong to be covering a few ways to progress the glute-ham raise (GHR). We use GHR variations for hypertrophy and injury prevention, as they are a good supplementary exercise to a lifting and/or sprinting program. These variations are a nice replacement for people who struggle to do a GHR well, or, people looking for variety in a program. These variations are heavily impacted from our good friends at Resilient PT, so be sure to check them out on Instagram at @resilientPPT!
1. Glute Ham Raise ISO Hold
-Muscle Action: Isometric Hamstrings, Glutes
-Purpose: Create context for other exercises that require a the ability to create posterior pelvic tilt using your feet (i.e., deadlifts, RDLs, etc..)
-Degree of Difficulty: Beginner
-Common Rep Scheme: 3-5 reps x 5-10seconds, or, minimal reps for long duration breaths
-Common Error: Don’t set up too far away, and don’t expect to cover too much ground
2. GHR Hip Extension
-Muscle Action: Isometric Hamstrings, Eccentric to Concentric Glutes
-Purpose: Create context for hip hinging by driving your feet into the pad as you descend and ascend. Additionally, work on syncing upper and lower half tension needed on a deadlift variation.
-Degree of Difficulty: Beginner -> Intermediate
-Common Rep Scheme: 6-10 Reps
-Common Error: Don’t go for speed. The goal is to feel tension throughout the movement. Additionally, make sure to achieve full hip extension at the top of the movement.
3. GHR Razor Curl
-Muscle Action: Eccentric -> Concentric Hamstrings, Isometric (mid-range) glutes
-Purpose: Hamstring hypertrophy. By avoiding full hip extension, the stress of the activity is placed purely on the hamstrings.
-Degree of Difficulty: Advanced
-Common Rep Scheme: I’ll typically program this as an RPE. For example, if I write 9 RPE, it’s assumed that you go 1 rep shy of technical failure. Other ways to write this include (Max – 1) or 1 Rep in Reserve (RIR). Take this close to failure to make it a hypertrophy focused exercise. I’ve seen an athlete go from 3 reps in week 1 to 17 in week 3, so, don’t assume one rep scheme for a 4-week block.
-Common Error: Don’t go for speed on the eccentric, and really reach your body out into full knee extension to assure that you hit the distal fibers of the hamstrings. Also, don’t cheat it by coming up into hip extension at the top and keep the tension.
4. GHR Waterfall
-Muscle Action: Eccentric -> Concentric Hamstrings and Glutes
-Purpose: Hamstring and glute hypertrophy.
-Degree of Difficulty: Intermediate -> Advanced. Slightly easier than the razor curl for two reasons – one, the eccentric is with gravity, and two, achieving full hip extension at the top gives you a moment of releasing tension from the hamstrings.
-Common Rep Scheme: Same as the razor curl. Typically better formatted as an RPE or RIR.
-Common Error: Don’t rely on momentum to bounce out of the bottom. You want to feel your feet leading the movement from the bottom of the motion.
If you want to make any GHR variation easier, decline the machine (elevate the front). To make it harder, incline the machine (elevate the back). Depending on the machine, you might be able to fit a band behind the back and either hold it or wrap it around your body to unload the bottom of the motion and provide more of an elastic component upon the return to the top.
To make the motion harder, adding a banded reach or adding load (holding a weight or using a weighted vest) will add to the eccentric stress and make the concentric motion more difficult.
John O'Neil (@ONeilStrength) serves as Director of Performance at Cressey Sports Performance-MA. You can contact him by email at joh.oneil@gmail.com and follow him on Instagram.
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