Glute Ham Raise

How to Perform the Glute Ham Raise

Set up on a glute-ham developer (GHD) machine with your feet secured against the foot plate and your knees resting on the pad.
Begin with your torso upright and your body forming a straight line from your knees to your head.
Cross your arms over your chest or place your hands behind your head.
Slowly lower your torso forward by extending at the knees, keeping your hips extended and your body rigid.
Continue lowering until your body is roughly parallel to the floor or as far as you can control.
Reverse the movement by forcefully contracting your hamstrings and glutes to pull your torso back up to the starting position.
Avoid using excessive hip flexion — the movement should primarily occur at the knee joint.

Bending excessively at the hips instead of the knees

Keep your hips extended throughout and focus on the knee flexion component to properly target the hamstrings.

Dropping too fast on the lowering phase

Control the eccentric portion slowly, taking 3-4 seconds to lower yourself down.

Not having the pad positioned correctly

Adjust the pad so your knees are on or slightly behind it, allowing full range of motion at the knee joint.

✓Trains the hamstrings through both hip extension and knee flexion simultaneously.
✓Significantly reduces hamstring injury risk, especially for athletes.
✓Builds exceptional posterior chain strength that carries over to deadlifts and squats.

●If you cannot perform full reps, use a resistance band looped around the machine for assistance.
●Focus on driving through the hamstrings and maintaining hip extension throughout the movement.
●This is an advanced exercise — master the bodyweight version before adding external load.

Strength

4-5 sets of 3-5 reps (bodyweight or weighted)

Hypertrophy

3-4 sets of 6-10 reps (bodyweight or lightly weighted)

Endurance

2-3 sets of 12-15 reps (bodyweight)

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