‘Natural’ glute ham raise is a glute ham raise without using a glute-ham raise machine, Otherwise known as a bodyweight leg curl.
This is a brutal exercise, it took me 4 months, was not a major goal, but one of my ongoing goals.
For the first time I used a training log, so I could see and track the progress.
If anyone is interested in progressing to do them, I did;
Started out only being able to do 3 eccentrics (and not even very controlled eccentrics) per set. Then used a thick band around chest to assist and got 5 reps. Kept increasing the first set by one rep every week, then increasing the 2nd set, then the 3rd, so it looked like;
5/5/5
6/5/5
6/6/5
6/6/6
7/6/6…etc… until I got 12 reps on all 3 sets.
Then I switched to a thin band to assist, and used the same rep progression formula.
Just tried them unassisted by bands today and got a SINGLE complete rep per set with my hands on my chest (slow eccentric, then a concentric) and 4 eccentrics. It doesn’t sound much, but I was very far from being able to do even a single rep when I started.
They are still brutal and it feels like your hamstrings are ripping when you do them.
I know that they’re not very popular as an exercise so I doubt many people care about this, but hey - decided to post it anyway.
Now just need to be able to bang out 10, like this guy;