Nordic Hamstring Curl Injury Prevention: A Twice-Weekly Eccentric Routine

Someone tears a hamstring sprinting during a five-a-side game, grabs the back of their thigh, and goes down. A month of rehab later they're back on the pitch, but they're pulling up short of top speed in every sprint because they're bracing for it to happen again. Rehab is done, there's no pain, but nobody ever taught them how to actually keep it from happening a second time. That's the gap this guide fills. This isn't a rehab protocol for treating an acute strain. It's an eccentric loading routine for someone who has already recovered, or who's never been injured at all, and wants to keep the risk of a first or repeat hamstring strain down for good.

The core movement is a single exercise: the Nordic hamstring curl. With the ankles anchored and the body kneeling, you lower your torso forward as a rigid unit while the hamstrings lengthen under tension. Across studies in soccer, rugby, and track sprinters, it's the single exercise most consistently linked to reduced hamstring injury rates. The problem is that most of what shows up when you search for it covers the rehab side, the injury grading, the week-by-week timeline for someone recovering from a strain, and glosses over how often and for how long an uninjured or already-recovered person should keep doing it for prevention. This guide goes the other direction and focuses entirely on the twice-weekly protocol you keep running once rehab is behind you or if you've never been hurt at all.

If you strained your hamstring within the last six weeks and it's still sore, start with Hamstring Strain Rehab in 3 Phases instead, or, if you're close to returning to play, Hamstring Strain Return to Sport in 4 Stages. If you're already back to training pain-free, or you play a sprint-heavy sport and have never been injured but want to get ahead of it, follow the sequence below.

Before You Start

Who This Routine Is For

This is for anyone training in a sport with frequent sprinting, hard acceleration, direction changes, or kicking (soccer, futsal, rugby, sprinting, basketball, and similar), who is currently pain-free and wants to reduce the risk of a first or repeat hamstring strain. If you tore a hamstring in the past and have already returned to pain-free training, this still applies to you. Reinjury risk is reported to be especially high in the first year after an initial strain, which is exactly why keeping this routine going after return to play matters.

Who Isn't Ready for This Yet

If any of the following applies, work through a rehab phase first instead of starting here.

• You strained the back of your thigh within the last six weeks and still have pain, bruising, or swelling on palpation
• The hamstring aches at rest, or you're still limping when you walk
• You've had recent surgery involving the hamstring tendon or muscle and haven't been cleared to return by your provider

If any of these apply, start with Hamstring Strain Rehab in 3 Phases to confirm your grade of injury first.

What You'll Need

Since you'll be kneeling, a mat or a folded towel under the knees is worth having. You'll also need a way to anchor your ankles, covered in detail below, whether that's a training partner's hands, the gap under a couch or bed, or a resistance band strap looped over a doorframe. Stage 2 additionally requires a resistance band.

Self-Check Before You Begin

Since this involves repeated kneeling and catching your weight with your hands, check the following first.

• Kneeling itself causes sharp pain at the front of the knee (arthritis, recent knee surgery, etc.)
• Pressing through your wrist causes tingling or a sharp ache
• Sciatica-type leg-radiating pain or tingling has recently worsened
• You're pregnant and the kneeling position itself is uncomfortable

If none of these apply, work through the stages below in order, and resist the urge to skip stage 1 and jump straight to stage 3. The Nordic curl is a high-demand eccentric exercise that asks the hamstrings alone to control your entire upper-body weight, and starting without a base commonly leaves people barely able to walk the next day.

Why This Is Prevention, Not Rehab, and Why Twice a Week

Where Hamstring Injuries Actually Happen

Break down a sprint stride and you'll find that during late swing, as the trailing leg swings forward to prepare for foot strike, the hamstring is lengthening and contracting hard at the same time. That's not a standard shortening contraction (concentric); it's a lengthening contraction acting as a brake (eccentric). Observational studies have repeatedly pinpointed this exact phase, near top speed, as where most hamstring injuries occur. Yet standard lower-body strength work like leg curls or deadlifts loads mostly the concentric, shortening phase, leaving the eccentric phase, the one where injuries actually happen, comparatively undertrained. The Nordic hamstring curl is one of the few exercises that isolates that eccentric phase and loads it directly, which is what sets its role apart from other lower-body exercises.

Why Twice a Week, Not Daily

Eccentric exercise causes microscopic muscle fiber damage in the early weeks, so doing it daily outpaces recovery and starts interfering with the next training session or match. A 2018 study by Presland and colleagues, covered below, compared groups given different Nordic curl training volumes and found that a lower-volume group gained nearly as much biceps femoris long-head fascicle length and eccentric strength as a higher-volume group. In other words, once a baseline adaptation is built, maintaining a low volume tends to be more practical than continuing to pile on more. That's the reasoning behind fixing the maintenance protocol in this guide at twice a week.

Where This Differs From a Rehab Protocol

A rehab protocol starts from a state of pain, begins with isometric holds, and uses pain as the signal for how quickly to add load. The premise here is different. You start straight into eccentric loading from a pain-free baseline, and the goal isn't reducing pain, it's lengthening the biceps femoris long-head fascicles and building eccentric strength to lower next season's injury risk directly. That's why this guide has no pain-grading or swelling checklist. Instead, the focus is on alignment, lowering speed, and how long you sustain the routine.

Why the Long Head of the Biceps Femoris

The hamstrings are made up of the semitendinosus, semimembranosus, and the long and short heads of the biceps femoris, and a disproportionate share of sprint injuries happen specifically in the long head, near the musculotendinous junction close to the ischial tuberosity. This muscle crosses both the hip and knee joints, which concentrates a large amount of lengthening stress on it during late swing. Part of why the Nordic curl is singled out as a prevention exercise, more than other eccentric movements, is that the way the whole body pivots forward around the knee puts exactly this fascicle bundle under load at its longest length. Lengthening the fascicle bundle itself means the same sprint stride puts it through a comparatively smaller relative stretch, which is the proposed mechanism for how the exercise builds in more margin before the tissue reaches its injury threshold.

Three Ways to Anchor Your Ankles

You don't need a gym machine for the Nordic curl, just something solid enough to hold your ankles in place. Pick whichever of the following fits your setup.

Option 1: A Partner Holding Your Ankles

This is the most stable setup. Have a partner kneel behind you and press down on your ankles (just above the Achilles) with their body weight to hold them in place. Check that there's no side-to-side slip on the first rep before starting your working set.

Option 2: The Gap Under a Couch or Bed

The simplest option for training alone. Wedge your toes into the gap under a low couch, bed frame, or heavy dresser. A folded towel where the top of your foot presses helps with comfort. Confirm the furniture won't slide first, and add anti-slip pads under the legs if needed.

Option 3: A Doorframe Resistance Band Strap

Get a door anchor strap you can loop over the top of a door hinge, plus a loop-style resistance band. Hook the anchor to the doorframe and slip both feet into the loop at ankle height. This setup has a bit of give from the band itself, so start with the lower-intensity stage 1 movement first to confirm it feels secure.

General Notes

Whichever method you use, pad under your knees, and keep them about hip-width apart. A loose ankle anchor can let your foot slip mid-descent, which risks a fall onto your face or wrists, so make it a habit to recheck the anchor before every set.

Stage 1: Short-Range Negatives

Starting Position

Kneel with your ankles anchored. Keep the torso in a straight line from knees to head, and hands set shoulder-width apart on the floor in front of you, ready to catch your weight at any point.

Movement Sequence

① Set a light brace through the abs and glutes → ② Without folding at the hips or low back, tip the whole torso forward as one rigid unit, pivoting at the knee, through a short 15 to 20 degree range → ③ Take 3 to 4 seconds to lower → ④ Catch your weight with your hands and press back up to the starting position using your arms → ⑤ Repeat.

Breathing Timing

Exhale as you tip forward, inhale as you press back up.

Sets, Reps, and Frequency

Twice a week, 2 sets of 6 to 8 reps, as a baseline. Around 90 seconds of rest between sets is enough.

Common Mistakes and Corrections

The most common mistake is the hips shifting back so the fold happens at the hip rather than the knee. From the side, the torso bends into an L-shape instead of staying straight, a sign the abdominal and glute brace has let go. Reset the brace and aim to keep knee, hip, and shoulder in one line the whole way down. The second mistake is dropping too fast and falling into the hands almost instantly, which strips out nearly all the eccentric stimulus, so hold yourself to a minimum of 3 seconds on the way down.

Stop If You See This Sign

If sharp pain shoots through the hamstring during the lower, or the front of the knee hurts, stop the set. For knee discomfort, add another layer of padding and shrink the range to about 10 degrees before trying again.

Stage 2: Band-Assisted Full-Range Negatives

Starting Position

Loop a resistance band around a chest-height anchor point (a door anchor or a rack post) and hold the other end with both hands in front of your chest, or wrap it around your torso. Set the band tension so it takes on part of your body weight during the descent. Kneel with ankles anchored and set the torso in a straight line.

Movement Sequence

① Set a brace through the abs and glutes → ② Keeping the torso rigid, lower slowly until you're almost touching the floor (close to 90 degrees) → ③ Take 4 to 5 seconds on the way down, letting the band tension and your arms control the final portion near the bottom → ④ Catch with your hands and use the band's assistance to press back to the start → ⑤ Repeat.

Breathing Timing

Exhale on the way down, inhale on the way back up.

Sets, Reps, and Frequency

Twice a week, 2 to 3 sets of 5 to 6 reps, as a baseline.

Common Mistakes and Corrections

If the band tension is set too high, the descent barely produces any tension at all and just feels like hanging down. You should feel a clear load through the hamstrings during the last 30 degrees of the descent; if you don't, drop the band tension a notch. The other common mistake is the same hip-fold pattern from stage 1, corrected the same way.

Stop If You See This Sign

If a sudden, sharp pain or pull shows up at one specific spot in the hamstring during the descent, different from ordinary muscle fatigue, stop right there and don't move up to stage 3. That kind of pain can be an early sign of a strain, and if it's still present a few days later, get it checked out.

Stage 3: Unassisted Nordic Curl

Who's Ready for This Stage

If you can complete stage 2 pain-free, holding a straight torso for 2 sets of 6 reps, you're ready to move on. If your form is still breaking down even with band assistance, stay at stage 2 a bit longer.

Starting Position

Kneel with your ankles fully anchored (a partner or a secure anchoring setup works best here). Keep the torso in a straight line from knees to head.

Movement Sequence

① Set a brace through the abs and glutes → ② Without folding at the hips or low back, lower the whole torso forward as one rigid unit, pivoting at the knee, as slowly as possible → ③ Hold out for as long as you can control the descent, typically down to around the 30 to 40 degree point → ④ Once you hit the point where you can no longer control the speed, reach both hands out fast and catch your weight on the floor like the bottom of a push-up → ⑤ Press through your hands back up to the starting position (using your arms for the return is fine) → ⑥ Repeat.

Breathing Timing

Exhale on the way down, inhale on the way back up.

Sets, Reps, and Frequency

Start at twice a week, 2 sets of 3 to 5 reps. How long and how controlled each rep is matters far more than rep count, so resist the urge to force more reps just because it feels manageable; staying in this range is the better call.

Common Mistakes and Corrections

The most common mistake is the hips shifting back and folding at the hip rather than the knee. This shifts load away from the hamstrings toward the hip flexors and undermines the whole point of the exercise. Reset the abdominal and glute brace and hold it the entire way through the rep. The second mistake is giving up on control and slamming down onto the floor, which not only kills the eccentric stimulus but raises the risk of a wrist or facial injury. Hold yourself to a minimum of 3 seconds per rep, and whatever point you can no longer sustain that is today's limit.

Stop If You See This Sign

If a sudden, sharp pain hits one specific spot in the hamstring during the descent, that can be an early strain signal, so stop immediately and monitor it for a few days. If next-day soreness leaves you struggling to walk for more than 3 days, or new wrist pain shows up, drop back to stage 2 volume for a re-adaptation period.

Maintenance Phase: The Twice-Weekly Refresh Protocol

Where the Goal Shifts

Once you can complete stage 3 pain-free at 2 sets of 5 reps, the goal shifts from adding more reps and sets to holding your current level steady for the rest of the season. This is what this guide calls the refresh protocol. You've already accomplished the volume-building goal; the only remaining job is not losing the eccentric strength and fascicle length you built while training through the season.

Fixing a Schedule Is the Key Move

Pick fixed days, Tuesday and Friday work well, and set aside about five minutes either after your main training session or on a lighter day. Rather than tacking it onto the end of your highest-intensity session, placing it the next morning or on an easier day cuts down on the chance that leftover leg fatigue wrecks your form.

Maintenance Sets and Reps

Keep it identical to stage 3: 2 sets of 3 to 5 reps, twice a week. Even on a day you feel strong and want to push further, staying under 3 sets is the better call. The goal here is prevention, not maximizing strength, so there's no reason to build up fatigue that spills over into your next session or match.

In-Season vs. Off-Season

During a busy in-season stretch, it's best to skip this routine within two days of a match. The delayed-onset soreness typical of eccentric work can linger for a day or two, which risks affecting performance. In the off-season or during lighter training blocks, there's no need to exceed twice a week, but keeping the same fixed days going is worth the small effort since it saves you from rebuilding tolerance from scratch when the next season ramps up.

Stop the Protocol If New Pain Shows Up

If new pain or a pulling sensation develops in the hamstring at any point during the maintenance phase, cut volume back or stop entirely and get the cause checked. This protocol exists to keep an already-healthy muscle healthy, not to push through a muscle that's already hurting. If new pain does show up, move over to Hamstring Strain Rehab in 3 Phases and reassess your grade of injury from there.

8-Week Progression Guide

One of the most frequently cited pieces of evidence behind the Nordic hamstring curl's preventive effect is a cluster-randomized controlled trial published by Petersen, Thorborg, Nielsen, Budtz-Jorgensen, and Holmich in the American Journal of Sports Medicine in 2011. Across 942 male soccer players split between teams running a Nordic curl prevention program and teams training as usual over a season, the teams running the program showed an acute hamstring injury rate roughly 60 percent lower than the control teams. The catch is that teams with poor compliance to the program didn't show a significant difference, and the study population was limited to male soccer players, so applying the numbers directly to other sports or genders calls for some caution.

A meta-analysis by van Dyk, Behan, and Whiteley published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2019 pooled data across multiple prevention-program studies covering 8,459 athletes and reported that programs including the Nordic curl reduced hamstring injury rates by roughly 51 percent. The same analysis flagged a weaker case for the exercise clearly reducing reinjury rates among athletes who'd already been hurt before, which is part of why this guide scopes itself to prevention rather than claiming a prevention routine alone guarantees no reinjury. If you have a recent injury history, a prevention routine by itself shouldn't be assumed to fully cover reinjury risk; a rehab protocol that lets the tissue itself heal properly first still matters.

On the dosing side, a study by Presland, Timmins, Bourne, Williams, and Opar published in Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports in 2018 is worth noting. Comparing groups given different Nordic curl training volumes over 5 weeks, the lower-volume group gained nearly as much biceps femoris long-head fascicle length and eccentric strength as the higher-volume group. The limitation is that this study measured muscle architecture and strength, not injury rates directly, and the 5-week window is too short to prove the long-term prevention benefit outright.

Don't move up a stage just because a week has passed if you haven't actually met the criteria in the table. Take your time in particular before moving into stage 3; staying at stage 2 for an extra week or two once it feels comfortable and pain-free costs you very little on the overall timeline.

Warning Signs and When to Avoid This Routine

Stop the Set Immediately If

• A sudden, sharp pain or tearing sensation hits one spot in the hamstring during the descent
• The ankle anchor gives way and you fall toward your face or wrists
• New tingling or a sharp ache shows up in the wrist
• Next-day soreness is severe enough that walking is genuinely difficult (a sign the volume was too high)

When to Avoid This Routine

• A hamstring strain or tear within the last six weeks with pain still present: start with Hamstring Strain Rehab in 3 Phases instead
• Recent surgery involving the hamstring tendon or muscle without clearance to return from your provider
• Knee arthritis or recent knee surgery that makes kneeling itself difficult: pad heavily and reduce the stage 1 range further, and stop if there's any pain
• Sciatica-type leg-radiating pain or tingling that's recently worsened: get a professional assessment first
• Late pregnancy, where kneeling itself is uncomfortable

This routine doesn't replace an individual diagnosis from a doctor or physical therapist. Even if none of the above applies and you've started the routine, if new pain develops during the maintenance phase, or the same rep consistently produces discomfort, that's the point to get a direct professional evaluation.

Can It Be Combined With Other Exercises?

This routine fills an eccentric gap that standard lower-body strength work like squats or deadlifts doesn't cover, so there's no conflict in running both. That said, doing it right after a session that's already left your legs heavily fatigued makes form harder to hold, so leave a few hours of separation from your main session, or push it to the next day.

Is Stretching a Substitute?

No. Stretching addresses flexibility and joint range of motion, which is a separate quality from the fascicle length and eccentric strength the Nordic curl targets. Athletes with plenty of flexibility but low eccentric strength have repeatedly shown up in observations as still carrying elevated injury risk, which is why it's worth not treating the two as interchangeable and skipping one for the other. If you already do hamstring stretching, keep it going, but don't treat it as a replacement for this routine.