Nordic Hamstring Exercise: What the Research Shows | Starke Industries

The Nordic hamstring exercise (NHE) looks simple. Kneel, have someone anchor your ankles, and lower your body forward as slowly as you can. It's also one of the most studied exercises in sports medicine.

This post covers what the research reports, how to read it carefully, and how to bring the exercise into a program.

What the exercise does

The NHE is an eccentric hamstring exercise: the hamstrings work while they lengthen, controlling the body's fall. Hamstring muscles work hard eccentrically during sprinting, which is part of why the exercise attracted attention for sprint-based sports.

What the trials report

Petersen et al. (2011). In a randomized controlled trial with 50 Danish professional and amateur soccer teams (942 players), the intervention group completed a 10-week progressive Nordic program followed by a weekly in-season program. The control group trained as usual. Over one season, the intervention group had 15 acute hamstring injuries compared with 52 in the control group, with lower rates of overall, new, and recurrent injuries [1].

van der Horst et al. (2015). In a randomized controlled trial with male amateur soccer players from 40 teams (579 players), the intervention group was asked to do 25 Nordic sessions over 13 weeks. Researchers tracked hamstring injury incidence and severity over a calendar year [2]. The intervention group had a significantly lower risk of hamstring injury than the control group. However, the authors found no significant difference in injury severity between the groups, and compliance with the program was 91% [2]. That detail is useful: the exercise was associated with fewer injuries in that trial, but not with less severe ones.

van Dyk et al. (2019). This systematic review and meta-analysis pooled 15 studies across different sports, age groups, and sexes. Programs that included the NHE showed an overall injury risk ratio of 0.49 compared with controls. The authors concluded that programs including the NHE reduce hamstring injuries by up to 51% [3]. In the randomized trials alone, and with high-risk-of-bias studies removed, the effect remained in favor of the NHE, though somewhat smaller [3].

Reading these results carefully

These are randomized trials and a meta-analysis of interventions, so they're stronger evidence than observational studies. Still, a few cautions apply:

• Most of the data come from soccer. The meta-analysis included other sports, but much of the evidence base is soccer-based.

• Results are averages across groups. They describe a lower rate of injury across teams, not a guarantee for any one athlete.

• Compliance matters. The programs only work if athletes actually do them.

• It's one piece. Hamstring injuries have many contributing factors, and no single exercise removes risk.

At Starke Industries we treat the NHE as a well-supported tool within a broader program. We don't treat it as a guarantee.

How to introduce it

The NHE is hard, and it causes significant soreness the first few times. Start conservatively:

1. Start with low volume. One or two sets of a few reps, once or twice a week. 2. Use assistance. A band anchored high behind the athlete, or a partial range, makes the lowering manageable. 3. Control the descent. The goal is a slow, controlled lowering. Falling quickly defeats the purpose. 4. Build over weeks. Add reps and sets gradually, and reduce assistance as strength improves. 5. Maintain in-season. Both Petersen and van Dyk describe programs continuing with lower in-season volume after an initial build [1, 3].

Common mistakes

• Too much, too soon. Large volumes on day one lead to severe soreness and poor buy-in.

• Bending at the hips. The body should stay roughly straight from knee to shoulder.

• Doing them exhausted. Best done when the athlete isn't already fatigued.

• Stopping in-season. Benefits likely depend on keeping it going.

Can you measure hamstring strength?

Some facilities use devices that measure force during the NHE, or other hamstring strength tests. These can track changes in strength over time. They describe current strength. They don't predict whether an individual athlete will get hurt.

Questions athletes ask

Will this make me faster? The trials above looked at injury outcomes, not speed. Don't add the NHE expecting a speed boost. Add it as part of a well-rounded program.

I'm sore for days after. Is that normal? Soreness is common when starting eccentric work. Lower the volume and build gradually. If you have pain, especially sharp pain, stop and get it evaluated.

Where it fits in a session

Many coaches place the NHE after the main lifts or at the end of a lower-body session, so it doesn't add fatigue before sprinting or heavy lower-body work. Others put a low dose in the warm-up. Either can work. What matters is that it's done consistently, in a dose the athlete can recover from, week after week.

The bottom line

The Nordic hamstring exercise has strong research support behind its use in sports with lots of sprinting. Introduce it gradually, keep it going all season, and treat it as one part of a complete program.

Related reading

• Summer Off-Season Training for High School Athletes: How to Plan the Break
• Training in the Heat: Heat Illness Basics for Summer Workouts
• Squat Jump vs. Countermovement Jump: What the Difference Tells You
• Single-Leg vs. Double-Leg Jumps: Why Test Both
• Sprint Testing 101: 10 m, 20 m, and the 40-Yard Dash
• Back to School: Getting Ready for Fall Sports Tryouts
• sprinting
• complete program

References

• Petersen J, et al. Preventive effect of eccentric training on acute hamstring injuries in men's soccer: a cluster-randomized controlled trial. Am J Sports Med. 2011;39(11):2296–2303. https://doi.org/10.1177/0363546511419277 (online Aug 8, 2011)
• van der Horst N, et al. The preventive effect of the Nordic hamstring exercise on hamstring injuries in amateur soccer players: a randomized controlled trial. Am J Sports Med. 2015;43(6):1316–1323. https://doi.org/10.1177/0363546515574057 (online Mar 20, 2015)
• van Dyk N, Behan FP, Whiteley R. Including the Nordic hamstring exercise in injury prevention programmes halves the rate of hamstring injuries: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 8459 athletes. Br J Sports Med. 2019;53(21):1362–1370. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2018-100045 (online Feb 26, 2019)
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