glute-ham raises / nordic falls . . . equipment.

canadianlbs

has anyone ever mcgyvered their own form of equipment for doing these? another person to brace me while i do them is not an option, so let's not go there. i can sort-of do them here at home, but nothing is quite the right height and i have nothing that would serve as a footplate either. the other factor is i'm already doing them injured as they were prescribed as part of a rehab for hamstring tendinopathy. so my leeway for equipment-driven form adjustments is already low. foot angle is super-important, for instance. if i have to turn my feet in either direction to fit a surface that is too low, it doesn't get to the muscle i need.

gyms that i go to don't seem to have this particular thing. i've been faffing around with various ideas and accomplished nothing effective so far. if anybody has btdt, i'd love to hear about it.

quiksylver296

For glute raises, back on a bench, feet on floor. Barbell on hips. Raise and lower.

I don't know what Nordic falls are.

ETA: After Googling, I think I had the wrong thing in mind for glute/ham raises, too. Sorry. Did you mean this?

quiksylver296

here's an idea

canadianlbs

^^^ yup, that's the move. and exactly that is one of my options at home, thanks to the way my couch is.

problem with that set up is, if you look at that guy he's holding on with his calves and the balls of his feet. my couch lets me get under it to about the point of mid-foot but it's still not that great. you have to curl your toes like a ballerina once the pressure gets on. then the teeny little muscles in the sole of your foot become the limiting factor for something that's meant to be hamstring-focused, which isn't the best way to go imo.

it's an awesome exercise though.

livingleanlivingclean

I've seen them done on a pull down machine. Kneel where you'd sit, facing out, with your feet under the pads your knees normally go under.

If you need assistance, you can use the cable, or attach a resistence band to the machine and out it around your shoulders

canadianlbs

livingleanlivingclean wrote: »

I've seen them done on a pull down machine. Kneel where you'd sit, facing out, with your feet under the pads your knees normally go under.

i kept eyeballing those pulldown machines and i can try it, but the bench is pretty narrow. i can keep the thighs clamped together (heh), but it's just a question of whether i'd have to turn out from the knee in order to get my feet meeting the pads. for my specific injury (tendinopathy of glute med and hamstring), i think going valgus like that is probably out as it may aggravate the tendon problem and won't let me get into the main hamstring muscle im' trying to hit anyway. but i'll have to look at the ones in teh rec centres and see how thick that pad-end column is.

i thought of trying the smith machine too. lowest peg, with enough weight on the bar to keep it stable. but regular plates raise it too high, so then i'd have to go fetch one of those step things and hope that sets the proportions just right . . . it's not that most of my own ideas wouldn't work. i'm just hoping to find something that won't call for four kinds of equipment and 20 minutes of fiddling around, just for the sake of a move i might hold for nothing more than a couple of seconds and 3x3 reps. i'm supposed to be doing this three times a day, so that's a pretty huge overhead especially in what's going to be a new-year-rush gym in a couple of weeks.

i think actually the simplest thing might be to chock up the frame of my bed after all

Lean59man

Other options include the following...

Hamstrings: Leg curls, stiff legged deadlifts or pull-thru on a low lat machine.

For glutes and hamstrings do back squats.

canadianlbs

Lean59man wrote: »

Other options include the following...

Hamstrings: Leg curls, stiff legged deadlifts or pull-thru on a low lat machine.

For glutes and hamstrings do back squats.

those are great lifts, no question. but if you re-check my posts you'll see i mentioned an injury. so actually, the falls are my 'other options' for hamstring work. hopefully once things calm down i'll go back to the deadlifts and squats, but right now i'd rather remove my own spleen with jeffrey dahmer's spare saw.

jemhh

I've often wondered the same--how to do these at home. Your post made me search for options that would work with what I have on hand. How about this?

https://youtu.be/MNFN5_mvsZk

stanmann571

You should be able to use the Golds gym/perfect pullup doorway bar in situp mode.

jjpptt2

livingleanlivingclean wrote: »

I've seen them done on a pull down machine. Kneel where you'd sit, facing out, with your feet under the pads your knees normally go under.

If you need assistance, you can use the cable, or attach a resistence band to the machine and out it around your shoulders

Agreed.

canadianlbs

jemhh wrote: »

I've often wondered the same--how to do these at home. Your post made me search for options that would work with what I have on hand. How about this?

oooo. that's what i've kept thinking of. i never thought just doing the brackets though. i could put that up against the wall if i needed some way to make sure that my feet were squared up. left foot turns in if it's left to itself, and that's probably part of what gave me this issue in the first place

edit: in fact i think if i can just find the right kind of bracket thingy, i might not even need the baseboard part of that. my couch weighs seven tons, so maybe all i need to do is get some major coat-hooks** to hook under the bottom part of the frame and then use the screw holes to attach a length of dowel or something in between them, across the 'top'. i don't mind banging up my couch a little in a good cause like physio.

** or just put the whole thing together with pvc pipe. i should call a plumber.

stanmann571 wrote: »

You should be able to use the Golds gym/perfect pullup doorway bar in situp mode.

i'll look into this one as well. thanks for everybody's ideas.

jjpptt2

Would you lose some of the effectiveness of a GHR if you were only able to go to horizontal? Or is that proper technique? I've always gone way lower than horizontal to get a bit of a lower back hyper in the movement too... but maybe I'm doing it wrong?

jemhh

canadianlbs wrote: »

jemhh wrote: »

I've often wondered the same--how to do these at home. Your post made me search for options that would work with what I have on hand. How about this?

oooo. that's what i've kept thinking of. i never thought just doing the brackets though. i could put that up against the wall if i needed some way to make sure that my feet were squared up. left foot turns in if it's left to itself, and that's probably part of what gave me this issue in the first place

edit: in fact i think if i can just find the right kind of bracket thingy, i might not even need the baseboard part of that. my couch weighs seven tons, so maybe all i need to do is get some major coat-hooks** to hook under the bottom part of the frame and then use the screw holes to attach a length of dowel or something in between them, across the 'top'. i don't mind banging up my couch a little in a good cause like physio.

** or just put the whole thing together with pvc pipe. i should call a plumber.

Are you referring to the strap when you say bracket? I'm not sure I'm following what you're saying. This is what I am picturing.

canadianlbs

jemhh wrote: »

Are you referring to the strap when you say bracket? I'm not sure I'm following what you're saying. This is what I am picturing.

love the drawing. no, i did have a straps idea but i've dropped that.

my probable go-to would be just like your picture, except rotate the anchor points at each end through 90 degrees so they'd hook on directly under the couch. 'over' the bottom part of the frame (my couch is hollow underneath; not everyone's is). then when i go into the fall my heels should be pulling straight up and directly counter to that. doing it that way means i'd only need about a foot of dowel, and it shoudl be portable/hookable under anything that has enough lip to hold a hook securely. no hole-drilling either.

dresser idea was the same only i was being unnecessarily fancy and thinking i'd strap each foot in individually instead of having the single straight-across bar. or something.

jjpptt2 wrote: »

Would you lose some of the effectiveness of a GHR if you were only able to go to horizontal? Or is that proper technique? I've always gone way lower than horizontal to get a bit of a lower back hyper in the movement too... but maybe I'm doing it wrong?

i think you're right for a healthy person. but in my case, i actually need to steer clear of anything that involves hip flexion. no deadlifts, no squats, no reverse hypering . . . i tried that last one about a week ago and it took the bad tendons three days to recover. so the ghr/nordic drop is exactly right for my own needs right now.

sgt1372

OP: If you lived anywhere near SF, I'd let you borrow (or buy) my GHR machine which I bought cheap on Craigslist and seldom use.

ritzvin

canadianlbs wrote: »

has anyone ever mcgyvered their own form of equipment for doing these? another person to brace me while i do them is not an option, so let's not go there. i can sort-of do them here at home, but nothing is quite the right height and i have nothing that would serve as a footplate either. the other factor is i'm already doing them injured as they were prescribed as part of a rehab for hamstring tendinopathy. so my leeway for equipment-driven form adjustments is already low. foot angle is super-important, for instance. if i have to turn my feet in either direction to fit a surface that is too low, it doesn't get to the muscle i need.

gyms that i go to don't seem to have this particular thing. i've been faffing around with various ideas and accomplished nothing effective so far. if anybody has btdt, i'd love to hear about it.

Adjustable sit-up bench (would still be the gym rather then home though)?

canadianlbs

sgt1372 wrote: »

OP: If you lived anywhere near SF, I'd let you borrow (or buy) my GHR machine which I bought cheap on Craigslist and seldom use.

why don't you? you should!!! etc etc.

thanks for all the thoughts, people. i went to the boondocks today to visit my dad, who is 92 and still has most of his marbles, although there are days when he's not sure where he put some of them.

he was a backveldt civil engineer in his day, and he rigged just about anything he needed while he was building roads through the middle of various nowheres. so there's nothing he loves as much as tinkering, unless it's problem-solving. i explained my dilemma and demonstrated the move, and before i knew it he'd gone and gotten his screwdriver and taken down two of his personal coat hooks for me.

then he wandered off in the middle of me trying to demo the rest of the idea and came back with a pitch-perfect little length of pvc, pmuch exactly what i'd been looking for. i'll report back once i get off my lazy butt and find some cord to put it all together with.

sgt1372

canadianlbs wrote: »

sgt1372 wrote: »

OP: If you lived anywhere near SF, I'd let you borrow (or buy) my GHR machine which I bought cheap on Craigslist and seldom use.

why don't you? you should!!! etc etc.

I prefer just doing deadlifts and squats instead, but it's there if I need it.

Good luck w/your Dad's "McGyver" project!