When it comes to training athletes, “posterior chain training,” is one of the buzzwords we tend to hear quite often as the top of the food chain.
This idea is a good thing, we want a better functioning posterior chain to be a better functioning, faster and more resilient athlete, no doubt about it. Athletes tend to have a sensory and functional imbalance between the front and back sides of the body. It’s easy to stimulate quads, harder to hit hamstrings. It’s even harder to hit hamstrings in an athletic manner.
The problem, as I’ve seen it spending the last 12 years in the strength & conditioning industry, and the last 14 in track & field coaching capacity is that there is a disconnect between coaching “posterior chain” in the weight room and “posterior chain” as we see active in sport.
Common Posterior Chain Training
Here are some ways we commonly look to build up the posterior chain for athletes:
- Squatting through the heels
- RDL through the heels
- Wide stance squatting, sitting hips back while squatting
- Relying on the weight room to completely develop the posterior chain as opposed to assisting in development
For example, coaching posterior chain through a wide-stance box squat, or by a low bar back squat can definitely light up one’s spinal erectors, glutes and (hopefully) hamstrings, and cause them to grow. This isn’t a bad thing at all if you are an athlete, but neurologically, it might not be the greatest thing.
Why?
Although the muscles get engaged, the total body pattern may suboptimal in the process of achieving your outcome. Movements that rely on “sitting way back” to get the posterior chain will come alongside lumbar extension in the spinal erectors, causing them to get very short and strong. For lifting weights, this is great, but what about sprinting? Jumping?
As Pavel Tsatsouline has said, spinal erectors to a weightlifter are biceps to a bodybuilder.
In all my years training, I got way way way stronger in all things hinging, deadlifting, cleaning and snatching. Yet in this time, my hamstrings weren’t getting much bigger or stronger. I also wasn’t getting faster like I thought I should be by virtue of my lifting.
I’ve done powerlifting programs where all my “big lifts” would go up by 10-15%, and via bio-impedance, would only put 1lb of muscle on my right leg, and only .2-.3 on my left (AIC pattern in PRI so imbalanced distribution of gains), while my glutes and back got much bigger and stronger.
Essentially in these programs, I was “deadlifting twice” as I’ve heard Ben House and Zac Cupples put it. (Doing a lot of unilateral work, my legs become balanced)
Again, I’m not totally hating on this stuff!
I’m just saying a lot of athletes, including myself will do the usual battery of low bar and “sit back” squats, hinges and hip thrusts of all sorts, and still have a suboptimal posterior chain.
There are absolutely athletes who exist who can naturally hop on a typical back squat, and feel it tremendously in their high hamstrings (I wish this was me). These are the athletes who get the most out of the typical powerlifts, by far. They naturally engage what they need to. The thing is, a lot of people look at exercises to build athletes, but don’t measure responsiveness, and how the individual athlete is operating on an organic, human, level.
In order to get more out of training, especially in the realm of the posterior chain training, because it is really important, I’ve listed 5 basic principles to help improve the basic firing sequences and neurology of the muscles groups on the back-side of the body (and by back-side, I’m talking mostly the hamstring group, simply because these muscles are so critically important for things like stabilization of the pelvis, sprinting and even breathing).
More important than developing muscles (which these methods do) they optimize muscle firing by optimizing joint position, and do so in significant enough density so that athletes can feel it in their sprinting (sprinting, by the way, is nature’s ultimate posterior chain developer, no special equipment required!).
The 5 Posterior Chain Training Methods
- Fixing Your Hinge (Turn on the Hamstrings)
- GHR Madness
- Nordic Hamstring Hacks (Hands on Hamstrings)
- Hamstring Chain and Sensory Work
- Lunges from Jamaica Mon’
Since I’ve learned more about my own posterior chain weakness via movement patterning (particularly in my hamstrings), I’ve found several methods that I use to help ensure a more balanced and athletic development of the posterior chain in a way that fits with athletic movement. To do this, we have to incorporate the feet athletically, as well as the hips and spine.
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Fixing Your Hinge
About 5 months or so ago, I did a podcast with Max Aita at Max’s Gym in Emoryville, California. Before we recorded the show (my favorite podcasts always involve a pre-recording workout of some sort), Max was kind enough to show me a lot of coaching points in the Olympic lifts and the time flew by so fast, an hour and a half was up before I knew it.
As we went through the lifts, Max was teaching me how to be more connected in my posterior chain in the pull, pointing to an “Iron Mind” picture on the wall of a lifter pulling well over 500lbs, and with a neutral spinal alignment that looked something like the image below as opposed to the “chest out butt back” posture that’s often taught.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BiC2H9mAfKc/
When the pelvis and spine are in neutral, the hamstrings can operate better in the pull. Justin Moore, in his first appearance on the Just Fly Performance Podcast (Episode #78) said:
“In deadlifting, I want them to load their hamstrings, load their glutes… I don’t want athletes to rely on hinging through their “TL (thoraco-lumbar) Junction”
When I coach athletes in the hinge, I now like to superset it with spinal awareness work. You can’t help an athlete achieve a position they cannot sense themselves. To this end, I like doing things like “Cat-Cows”, or better yet, Sagittal plane COGS (Gary Ward’s work) against the floor or wall, and then performing the hinge, using the lumbo-pelvic strategy the athlete feels gets them the most hamstring contribution on the concentric portion.
Above, Gary Ward Floor COGS
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Glute-Ham Raise Madness
The “Glute-Ham” Machine is an absolute must for athletic development. Well… I guess nothing outside the human body is a “must” for training, but the GHR is up there in importance.
There are a ton of exercises that athletes can do on the Glute-Ham, but my personal favorite are those that require athletes to perform the movement under control and with an awareness of what the pelvis and spine are doing. Many athletes will do a Glute-Ham raise the same way they do a deadlift, hinging on the TL junction.
In order to get the most out of the movement, good neutral pelvis position should be shown, and then the movement performed, at least initially, with lots of isometric time under tension, or slow tempo control. In this manner, an athlete can’t “jump past” their hamstrings by bouncing and curling their spine, or whatever other method they can use to cheat the fact that the have weak hamstrings in relation to the rest of the posterior kinetic chain.
I also like pressing the toes into the plate base of the GHR, since this helps the double whammy of down-regulating the calves in their role in knee flexion, and also connecting the ball of the foot to the hips.
Time-under-tension GHR Variations
The isometric hold is really the staple here, and everything else can work around it. Here are some favorite prescriptions:
- 4x30s isometric hold
- EDI’s: 5-10s isometric hold + 1 rep (for 2-5 reps)
- 505 tempo GHR
- 501 tempo GHR
- Reactive GHR or Drop into a Hold
Isometric work is really a way to just deliver a whole lot of neurological stimulus to a muscle group (I write about this concept and much more in relation to muscles, neurological effects, and training in “Speed Strength”) at a relatively low neurological cost.
In my early introduction to the importance of slowing things down in this realm, Alex Lee, podcast guest #139, had told me about how after doing GHR EDI’s, Drops and a lot of ISO holds, how differently he felt running and playing basketball since he had gotten his hamstrings incredibly strong.
To me, if you can teach your body to engage hamstrings better, and then get more out of the hamstrings in your sport and sprinting, you are in the winner’s circle.
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Nordic Hamstring Variations (Hands on Hamstrings!)
In the world of injury prevention, and hamstring strength, the Nordic Hamstring is an absolute staple. We know that work-loads, stress, nutrition and sleep all play a role in hamstring injuries, not to mention running mechanics. Athletes with strong hamstrings still get injured, but Nordics do help! They can even improve sprinting speed as one research study has suggested. If the strength of the hamstring is lacking, the brain will neurologically shut down speed to stay safe.
One thing I’ve found over time is that I really suck at Nordic hamstrings (although I recently had a pretty high output on the NordBoard in using it for the first time a couple days ago, a result of many of the methods on this list).
The first thing I ever did that instantly improved my Nordic strength by a huge factor was inhibiting my over-active gastrocs through Direct Current stimulation. Instant boost as well as no more pain in the back of my knee.
“Boom”
Another thing that helped me out tremendously I actually found by accident. Actually, it was not an accident, since my subconscious mind did this intuitively and I just noticed it as I was performing the movement. What I did was I had put my hands on my upper hamstrings on the downward portion of the exercise (thankfully, my monkey javelin thrower arms and torso make this easier than for say, a bench press powerlifting specialist).
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What does putting your hands on your hamstrings accomplish?
Well, our bodies function only as well as they sense. A saying in the same realm by Dr. Tommy John is “You only heal you if you feel you”, this referring to our societal push that you should never feel pain, use anti-inflammatories, etc. and generally numb yourself to whatever is irritating you.
Back to my original point. When you place your hands anywhere on your body, you increase the sensory load on that area of the body. In other words, more sensory power is given to the hamstrings when your hands are on them, and they can fire more effectively. Especially since this is a muscle on the backside of your body, the sensory maps are very under-developed here in many athletes.
Put the hands on the hamstrings, and you’ll notice quite the boost in performance in movements like the oft-difficult Nordic Hamstring.
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Hamstring Chain and Sensory Work
When it comes to working hamstrings, it doesn’t get any easier to create a neurological link than by using a simple hamstring chain hold.
Something I’ve found is that fast athletes who function well, tend to be extremely good at this exercise. Is it just that their hamstrings are that much “stronger” or do they have better neurological control on the backside of the body? Survey says = control.
A typical response to this exercise is CRAMP!!! Cramping indicates a neurological issue in the exercise, and the brain doesn’t know how to operate in that range. You can see this also by plantar flexing your foot and toes as much as possible, something I learned from podcast guest Zig Ziegler. Many people will feel a cramp here if the intrinsic foot muscles aren’t operating as well as they can.
Another typical response to this is to lean forward at the hip so they hamstrings stay at a longer, more neurologically manageable length. Reducing this over time is important.
A neurological “trick” Dan Fichter showed me was to perform bodyweight, extremely slow lowering or eccentrics, in order to ease this cramping, and make each rep better, which is a nice tactic on this movement.
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Jamaican/Dynamic Lunges
Last, but certainly not least, is one of my favorites, the Jamaican, or simply, dynamic, lunge. This movement is a lunge with a pronounced forward hinge at the hip at the bottom of the movement in order to really stretch-load the proximal hamstring. It is also done at a level of velocity as to load this area quickly, which is important. Stretch-loading of the proximal hamstring is really important, since in running, the proximal end’s job is to lengthen, while the distal end’s job is to shorten.
I would generally have my athletes step forward just a little further than the guy in this video, but he’s definitely getting the job done loading the glute and hamstring under length, and velocity.
I first saw this type of movement being done on the tail end of a sprint workout for a believe 2×50 meters in a group of collegiate sprinters. The exercise, and the idea of “strength through length” stuck with me, and in my time as a college track coach, I would always finish off my athlete’s tempo-sprint (e.g. 6x200m) days with a few sets of 15-20m Jamaican/Dynamic lunges.
For me personally, I don’t get nearly the glute and high hamstring development in squats that I can get with the Jamaican lunge. Doing them in higher reps is also important for really getting that neurological message through! I’m not saying you have to do 2x50m, or have your athletes do multiple reps of barbell lunges across a a gym, but some amount of volume here is helpful in creating resilient and strong tissue under length.
Add light weights or a weight vest if you like, but just remember that velocity and intention rules!
Conclusion
Although this isn’t every single posterior chain/hamstring training method out there, the principles within can be ported over to pretty much anything. Strong hamstrings rise all ships in the function of the human body, so it should be our derivative to improve them from a multi-lateral approach.
If you enjoyed this article, there is a lot more information on the topic, as well as all other aspects of sprinting, lifting, training organization, individualization and beyond in my acclaimed book “Speed Strength“. Get your copy today and join the growing list of coaches who are digging into this book that releases my thought process like nothing else I’ve put out”
About Joel Smith
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