Cross-sectional Study of EMG and EMG Rise During Fast and Slow Hamstring Exercises.
Kasper Krommes, Markus Due Jakobsen, Thomas Bandholm and 5 others
PMID 34386282WHAT IT FOUND
The slow Nordic Hamstring exercise triggered faster muscle activation than the fast Hamstring Catches.
Hamstring Catches achieved high knee speed but lower muscle activity. Neither exercise matched sprinting velocity. This challenges the assumption that fast exercises are needed for explosive hamstring conditioning.
Key findings
01The Nordic Hamstring exercise produced the highest rate of electromyographic rise, occurring earlier in the contraction than during the high-velocity Hamstring Catches.
02Hamstring Catches achieved much higher knee angular velocity than other exercises but resulted in lower peak muscle activity compared to the Nordic Hamstring and heavy Leg Curls.
03The angular velocity during Hamstring Catches, while high for a controlled exercise, remained well below the speeds documented during actual sprinting.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The study was exploratory with no pre-registered hypotheses or power calculation. Participants were healthy, sports-active males with no recent hamstring injuries, so results may not apply to injured athletes. The 'fast' exercises still did not reach the velocities of actual high-speed running. Surface EMG has inherent measurement limitations regarding signal cross-talk and placement accuracy.
Declared interests
The study received no specific funding. One author has a financial interest in a company that sells a device for assessing hamstring strength, but he was not involved in data collection or analysis.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that because Hamstring Catches are performed quickly, they are better for developing explosive power than the Nordic Hamstring. The study found the slow Nordic Hamstring actually triggered muscle activation faster and more strongly than the fast Hamstring Catches.