I know plenty of athletes out there that have had trouble building up their hamstrings. Personally, I have maxed out every leg curl machine I have been on but know my hamstrings are still weak. The leg curl machines always seemed ineffective and easy to accomplish. Well, for once in a blue moon I was actually correct. I came across “hamstring pulls” about 3.5 years ago when watching “Freak Training” a football training video. Since that day, I always knew when I started my gym that these pulls would be part of my sprint training and any other sport focused on relative strength and hamstring health. This move is extraordinarily difficult but very efficient.
The problem that confronted me was having a comfortable piece of equipment to use. I bent a few metal pieces and even had partners hold me down but none of these were very comfortable. Recently, I decided to contact Ross Enamait of www.Rosstraining.com to get information on building a hamstring pull device. He forwarded me some information. At that point I decided to contact the official Garage Strength carpenter, Tim Hahn.
Tim reviewed the points and then decided to utilize his firm understanding of vectors. He came up with the piece of equipment below. It is cheap, easy to use and extremely hard to master. The directions are as follows:
It is 4′ long and about 33″ wide
Plans:
Materials: long decking screws, 2 8′ 2×4s, sheet of plywood, thicker piece of wood for plank for feet (or use leftover plywood)
1. Cut a piece of plywood at a length of 4′ (this is factory width) and then cut the desired width…we used 31 in.
2. Cut an 8′ 2×4 in half so u have 2 4′ pieces.
3. Screw the 4′ 2×4 along the 4′ sides of the plywood. Make sure that the 2×4 is upright… screwed on the 2″ side.
4. Place the piece of wood used by your feet at the desired angle and then screw it into the upright 2×4s
5. Cut a piece of 2×4 to screw to the upright part of the angled plank for stability and strength.
6. Repeat on the other side
7. Finished!
The product should look like a triangle on the one side of the of the piece of plywood. This can be used for hamstring pulls and if you put it up higher, you can use it for glutes and lower back exercises. It is a very versatile piece of equipment and great for training a hard to attack area.
[...] Hamstring Pulls: Building The Equipment [...]
Great training idea – I workout in my own garage and would really like to build one of these, but don’t really understand the build from the description? Could you get your friend to show a build in progress with pictures? I know it’s a big ask, but I think it would really enrich an already valuable article.