Put these glute ham raise alternatives into your workout for better gains.
Focusing on certain exercises we love can prove to pay off in the long run, but when it comes to the glute ham raise as a singular exercise, looking to those glute ham raise alternatives can diversify your workouts for the better. We all want the best when it comes to seeing gains and often times we stick to the same old exercises we know and love because it’s what comfortable.
But eventually our muscles get used to them and our growth plateaus, clearly something we all don’t want or need. By adding in alternative exercises we give ourselves the best benefit to seeing similar growth while also adding different workouts to the larger training program.
The glute ham raise is a solid exercise to work your posterior chain, mainly your hamstrings and glutes, but with the top glute ham raise alternatives in your routine, the gains you want to see most are right around the corner. Working the same muscles, in a different way, but sticking to the idea of supporting the posterior chain, what you will find is your workouts become more engaging and fun with only the best gains to show for it.
Let’s take a look at both the glute ham raise exercise and the best glute ham raise alternatives so you can see huge gains and mix up your workout. With the right exercises in your training program, all of those you want to see can be achieved in no time.
What Is The Glute Ham Raise?
The glute ham raise is a great exercise working mainly your hamstrings and glutes. It is highly effective in developing strength and muscular endurance perfect for seeing posterior chain gains.
By working to bend the knee and extend the hips, this targets your hamstrings so they will grow, but also see better range of motion and aid in functional movements. Great for adding to your leg day routine, this exercise is certainly not one to neglect (1).
Benefits Of It
The benefits of the glute ham raise are hard to ignore and will make you want to put this into your routine. As a highly effective workout, it would be a disservice not to give this exercise a go.
Benefits of the glute ham raise include:
- Glute and hamstring development: By increasing strength and size in your hamstrings and glutes, you build better development for sport specific and functional movements.
- Better posture: With this overall development, you work to strengthen muscles necessary for posture, so no more slouching and unfortunate pain caused by poor posture.
- Back support: Strengthening those lower body muscles work to support your hips, and with stronger hips, comes a more supported back to increase gains in sport specific and functional workouts.
- More power and speed: Both power and speed stem from your leg strength and by working on this overall development, you will see those performance goals take off.
- Plenty of alternative exercises: The nice part about alternative exercises (which we will get into) are that you can target the same muscles and get the same benefits, all while changing up your workout.
Best Glute Ham Raise Alternatives
Let’s take a look at some of these glute ham raise alternatives in order to set you and your training plan up for success. With the right exercises, you can tackle all of those goals and really give yourself the best benefits possible, all while targeting the exact same muscles. Give these glute ham raise alternatives a try and really see what these can do for all your muscle building goals today.
1. Good Mornings
Good mornings follow the idea of hinging at the hips and allowing for better movement in the waist. You can make these harder by adding resistance bands, dumbbells, or a barbell to the lift for that added time under tension and resistance (2).
2. Single Leg RDL
Great for focusing on your glutes and hammies, the single leg RDL is a nice alternative to work on muscle imbalances and improve single leg stability. Able to increase lower body strength and size, this is a real challenge to put into your workouts (3).
3. Stability Ball Leg Curls
Great for those hamstrings, this is also relies heavily on your core and forces you to really focus on form. Great for working on stability and enforcing mind-muscle connection, this will give your hamstrings a wild ride to growth.
4. Glute Bridge Walkouts
This workout is a real challenge and really works those core and hip stabilizers. As a result of the stretching that occurs, you not only give your glutes a great workout, but also those hamstrings, both vital for the completion of the exercise.
5. Kettlebell Swings
Kettlebell swings are a great exercise and one totally worth doing, for they not only work your glutes and hamstrings, but many other muscles as well. A real full body exercise, this is most certainly one to build muscle and increase your heart rate for a really nice alternative (4).
Why These Alternatives Are Great
These glute ham raise alternatives listed above are great for a number of reasons, most notably being the fact they work the same muscles and will target them in unique ways. By allowing your muscles to become confused, you will trick them into growing so they can’t get used to the same old exercises. For your posterior chain, having exercises that allow for similar development as the glute ham raise keep the benefits like posture and injury prevention intact.
Wrap Up
These top glute ham raise alternatives can help you see much better gains so you only continue to sculpt and shred. By sticking to the same exercises, we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to truly thrive, thus inhibiting our ability to see the best growth possible. These glute ham raise alternatives are exactly what you need to see success and will only produce the best physique for you, and one others will definitely envy.
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*Images courtesy of Envato
References
- McAllister, M.; et al. (2014). “Muscle activation during various hamstring exercises”. (source)
- Vigotsky, A.; et al. (2015). “Effects of load on good morning kinematics and EMG activity”. (source)
- Martin-Fuentes, I.; et al. (2020). “Electromyographic activity in deadlift exercise and its variants. A systematic review”. (source)
- Lake, J.; et al. (2012). “Kettlebell swing training improves maximal and explosive strength”. (source)