The swiss ball hamstring curl is a fantastic exercise to strengthen the hamstrings, glutes and core.

Instructions

Lie on your back and put both of your feet on the swissball. With your knees straight, perform a bridge by diffing your heels into the swissball to lift your hips up. Once up, slowly roll the swissball towards you by bending your knees. Once the swissball has rolled towards use, slowly roll it back out. Rolling it back out with control is the hardest and most important part! You can use your hands at your side if needed.

FEEL: You should feel your hamstrings working very hard to control the swissball movement.

COMPENSATION: Do not let the swissball move from side to side. It should only be rolling forward and backward. Make sure to only extend at the hips, and not the lower back!

The hamstrings are an often neglected muscle group in rehab and performance programming due to the fact that it’s not always sexy to “isolate” a muscle group. Compound exercises like Romanian deadlifts definitely hit the hamstrings, but these closed-chain exercise variations are all hip dominant exercises, meaning they use the hamstring’s hip extension action. As a bi-articular muscle group that crosses both the hip and knee joints, the hamstrings perform both hip extension and knee flexion.

MUSCLES TRAINED 

Agonists

• Hamstrings
• Glutes
• Abdominal Core Muscles

Synergists

• Gastrocnemius
• Erector Spinae
• Hips

Swiss Ball Hamstring Curl Variations

• HAMSTRING BRIDGE ON SWISSBALL KNEE BENT
• SWISSBALL HAMSTRING CURL ECCENTRICS
• SINGLE LEG SWISSBALL HAMSTRING CURLS

Common Errors

One common error which is seen with this exercise is not keeping the hips up as you bring your feet in. Another error is losing rigidity through the mid section.

Check out these other resistance training exercises:

• Face Pull
• Bench Press
• The Turkish Get Up
• Front Squat.
• Shoulder Press – Standing Barbell
• Deadbug – Abdominal Exercise
• Overhead Barbell Squat
• Battle rope

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