If you can do that, I'll give you a dollar raise next month.
What's going on nation?
Today we're going to talk about how to pop your hamstrings.
Ricki looks a little confused on that. Well guys,
what I really mean is I'm going to show you how to perform a reverse barbell
lunge to train your hamstrings, quads and glutes. But you know,
if you don't get what I'm talking about,
I recently released a video called leg day scare where I actually really injured
my hamstring on my right leg while doing a reverse barbell lunge.
And so I thought what better way to show you guys what you should avoid and what
you should pay extra attention to when performing this movement.
Now I don't want you guys to get scared.
The reverse barbell lunge is not a dangerous exercise.
And my injury was kind of a freak thing that only happened because I had an old
injury from like when I was in my late teens that never quite healed correctly.
It's actually very difficult to pull your hamstring while doing a reverse lunge.
So what happened was I pulled my hamstring and it cause a lot of instability in
my right knee when I would, whenever I would do single leg movements.
But because I'm so stubborn,
I was always able to power through any of my workouts.
So I never even realized I had an issue to begin with.
I just thought that I had terrible balance on my right leg.
But as long as you follow these three golden rules,
you'll be able to train injury free and keep making gains.
I also have a bonus tip to help with your overall hamstring activation at the
end of the video,
so make sure you stick around for that.
But before we get started,
be sure to subscribe for more great content. Also guys,
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my video uploads and their most recent excuse to me was to remind you guys to
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So let's really put that to the test and smash it so hard that we induce nuclei
overload training and the video views skyrocket like crazy.
We got this. Alright, so golden rule number one, mind your step,
the most common injury with the reverse barbell lunge occurs when people step
too far backwards or not far enough. So let's quickly go over both.
Number one, if you step too far backwards,
it's definitely not good because your joints will not be in alignment.
Watch what happens when I do it here.
My back knee is definitely not underneath my pelvis and my front knee is
definitely not above my ankle. Now is this bad enough to cause an injury?
Well, it's not terrible if you do it with body weight in your everyday life,
but when you start to add weight on your shoulders,
then it can become a problem.
And this is because your muscles are not in a mechanically sound position to be
able to move a lot of weight. Therefore,
the possibility of a strain or pull is increased drastically when you have,
weight on your shoulders guys,
you want to feel compact and tight on every single repetition.
Stepping too far back will feel very unstable.
And number two if your backstep is too short,
well again your joints will not be in alignment and now you're shifting the
focus of the actual size from hamstrings and glutes to quads by a lot and not in
a good way because a lot of the tension is going to go right into your knee.
And speaking of the knees, look at the angle.
They're bending way more than 90 degrees, which heavily recruits the quad.
But also my front knee is tracking really far over my toes.
And now your knees tracking past your toes isn't always a bad thing for example
when squatting. But in this situation it's not good because as I just said,
we're placing a lot of the stress from the weight directly on the knee.
And this can also cause your heels come off the ground as well.
So what's the solution? Well before you start barbell reverse lunging,
perform some reps with body weight first until you figure out what the optimal
step distance is for you. For the most part,
you want 90 degree bends in both knees and above all else.
You want to feel stable while performing your repetitions.
Golden rule number two, keep everything in line. Now,
this may seem identical to the previous rule, but bear with me for a second.
In the previous rule,
we talked about absolute knee angles and how far you should step back.
Now I want to talk about relative joint positioning in regards to the entire
body. This exercise starts to get problematic when you step back at an angle.
This slight step back,
let's say to the side creates a lot of torque on the knee and hip joint,
especially when you add resistance to the movement.
So what I want you guys to focus on is this. Keep your ankles, knees,
and hips, all in a straight line.
Your front ankle and knee should be directly in front of your hips and your back
ankle and knee should be directly behind your hips.
Also guys at your hip should stay square as you perform the movement.
But if your hip start to sink to one side or the other,
it means that one of your hips is tight and it might be a good time to start to
adapt the bit more foam rolling or stretching before you start training.
Especially if you sit a lot throughout the day. Golden rule number three,
you've got to stay upright at all times.
It should almost feel like you're leaning back slightly when performing any type
of lunge.
This is the best way to ensure you're keeping your torso operate and your hips
directly underneath your spine. However,
there is a variation of this exercise that will allow you to target a bit more
glutes and that is by slightly leaning forward when you perform the movement.
But the key difference here is that even as you slightly lean forward,
you're still keeping your chest up.
Too many people fall directly into spinal flexion because they just kind of
flop over as they perform the movement to lean forward.
And this places extreme pressure on the spine and should be avoided,
especially when you have weight on your back. Also,
you only need a slight lean forward to activate your glutes.
It doesn't need to be so exaggerated,
literally just bend at the hip a bit more and keep your spine straight as you
reverse lunge.
And now for the bonus tip that I promised you guys and it's mind your knee
stability and this is the tip coming from personal experience that I explained
earlier in the video and it's also going to probably apply to many of you so I
want to share it now I may have injured myself just recently,
but that doesn't mean there weren't warning signs for months and honestly for
years.
And the truth is my front knee would always wobble whenever I'd do a single leg
movement like a lunge or Bulgarian split squat.
I didn't feel any pain or really any tightness in my hamstring.
So I just assumed that my balance wasn't as good on my right side.
So if you have that kind of instability in one of your knees when you're
lunging, then you need to address it before you start increasing the weight.
And so here's a quick activation drill to ensure your hamstrings are activating
properly.
I want you guys to do is get into the bottom position of a reverse lunge. Okay.
And once you're here,
what I want you to do is make sure your heel is firmly planted on the ground
once it's firmly planted to gonna lean back and get into to the position that
you would be in at the bottom of a reverse lunge.
Now with your heel pushing into the floor,
you're going to flex your hamstring and your glutes and then push straight up
and then come back down, relax,
and then repeat the sequence again. Push your heel into the ground,
flex your hamstring, flex your glutes, come up to the top,
and then go back down and repeat.
And you guys gonna do this three to five side times per side.
So on the other side it works the same way and this is actually my side that was
bothering me and I can feel the hamstring still needing help learning how to
react in a properly,
and that's going to be a part of the healing process for me.
So push into the ground, flex the hamstring, flex the glutes,
and then push straight up and then repeat three to five times.
And then as soon as you do this,
your hamstrings will be activated and that should help you with the movement.
But if you start to feel pain or you're still having a hard time doing this,
if you feel really wobbly,
maybe it's time to check out a sports massage therapist or somebody who works
with athletes just to make sure you're,
if you did have a strain or a pole in the past that your hamstring healed
correctly, be sure to add the reverse barbell lunge to your next leg day.
And if you're wondering what is the best time to utilize this exercise,
it makes the most sense to do it after one of your bigger lifts like squatting
or the leg press. However, if your hamstrings are a lagging exercise,
it wouldn't be a bad idea to start your leg day with this movement first.
Just make sure that you expect not to be able to lift as much on your squats as
obviously this is going to fatigue your legs as for reps and sets a good place
to start as three to four sets of eight to 10 repetitions.
And then as you get stronger and more comfortable with the movement,
you can start increasing the weight and hit more of that six to eight rep range.
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