FT Questions....

[Scott Stevenson]

More can never hurt! (plus you always seem to come up with some wicked ideas) I'll let you know what I'm currently doing / or tried in the past as not to waste your time.

Currently I'm doing BB RDL, and DB RDLs, those are working great. A little burnt out on DB hamstring curl lifts at the moment (as mentioned above). I've given some thought to doing RDLs in the smith machine, but historically my low back does not recover very quickly, so not wanting to throw too many RDLs in. I did fetal hamstring curls for awhile, but found it hard to progress. Both pulldown machines where maybe I could do assisted nordic hamstring curls face a mirror, so I'd just do 6x4 of smacking my face into a wall. I may be able to position a band somewhere above, and wedge my feet in under something, have to scout my gym a bit better.

I have done sumo style leg press / squat stuff, but usually reserve those for Tier 1 stuff as there is some overlap there. My gym has a single good seated hamstring curl machine. It has two, but the second is designed so poorly I basically have to use it extremely light to get any feeling in my hamstrings.

Thanks for letting me know what you're already up to!

With ankle cuffs, you can lie face down on a decline bench (knees lower than head) and hook yourself up to a low cable to do prone ham curls.

You can also use the seated calf machine to do Nordic Ham curls. (With the right cable machine, you can use an overhead cable to provide upward lift.) Load it up so that the knee pad can't move with this (at least 4 x 45lb) and drop the pad to the lowest position (it will go over the back of your ankles / lower calf, of course).

On some knee extension machines, you can do a unilateral ham curl by standing on a step bench or whatever gets you into position and slip your ankle in front of the pad. (Most KE machines are padded well enough at the edge of he seat that this isn't uncomfortable.)

Of course, with DB ham curls, you can lie face down on a decline bench (so you can still lift the DB off the ground with your feel) and this will overload at the knee knee-flexed position, which may help with your calf issue.

-S