One Simple Exercise That Cuts Hamstring Injuries Roughly in Half

Hamstring strains are among the most common injuries in sports that involve sprinting, such as soccer, football, rugby, and track. They are painful, slow to heal, and notorious for coming back. So a cheap, equipment-free exercise that meaningfully lowers the risk is a big deal.

The Nordic hamstring exercise is simple to describe and hard to do: an athlete kneels while a partner holds their ankles, then leans forward as slowly as possible, using the hamstrings to resist the fall. This trains the hamstrings 'eccentrically,' meaning the muscle produces force while lengthening, which is exactly the demand placed on it during high-speed running, when most hamstring strains happen.

This review gathered the available trials, covering 8,459 athletes across different sports and levels, and pooled their results. The headline finding: training programs that included the Nordic hamstring exercise were associated with about half the rate of hamstring injuries compared with programs that did not include it. The authors suggest the benefit comes from increased eccentric strength and changes in the muscle itself.

Two honest caveats belong here. First, the exercise was studied as part of broader training programs, so it works best as one ingredient in a well-rounded preparation plan, not a standalone fix. Second, a later reappraisal by other researchers questioned some of the methods used to pool the studies and argued the preventive effect is less certain than the 50% figure implies. Even with that debate, the Nordic hamstring exercise remains one of the most widely recommended injury prevention tools in sport, because it is low-cost, low-risk, and supported by a substantial body of evidence. Athletes new to it should build up gradually, since it commonly causes significant muscle soreness at first.

Key findings

• This systematic review and meta-analysis pooled studies covering 8,459 athletes across multiple sports.
• Injury prevention programs that included the Nordic hamstring exercise were associated with a roughly 50% reduction in hamstring injury rates (injury risk ratio 0.49).
• The proposed mechanism is that the exercise builds eccentric hamstring strength, the ability to control the leg while the muscle lengthens, which matches how sprinting injuries occur.
• The exercise requires no equipment beyond a partner or anchor for the ankles, making it practical for teams at any level.
• A later methodological reappraisal by other researchers argued the pooled effect is less certain than the headline suggests, so the true size of the benefit is debated, though the exercise remains widely recommended.

Clinical relevance

Eccentric hamstring work is easy to program badly and abandon early; a supervised strength floor lets athletes learn the exercise properly, progress it gradually, and actually stay consistent enough to get the protective effect.

Prepared by the Volt Health team as an educational summary of the cited publication. It is not medical advice; assessment and treatment decisions should always be made with a qualified health professional.