Posterior Chain Development

The posterior chain has become the go to area over the past ten years or so and it deserves the attention it receives. I also firmly believe that non-contact ACL tears can be nearly eliminated by proper training of the hamstrings. For those that are not familiar, the posterior chain consists of the hamstrings, glutes, and low back muscles. These muscles are responsible for most jumping and sprinting ability. For the reason it is crucial for this area to be attacked if you want to succeed in your chosen sport. It needs to be hit fast, heavy, and for conditioning. I will give a few of my favorite exercises today.

Deadlifts
Nothing quite compares to a deadlift when it comes to posterior chain development. There is not another exercise around that allows you to load the PC with anything amount of weight close to a bent knee deadlift. I also feel deadlifts are superior for gaining over all muscle mass. One of my favorite variations of the deadlift is the deadlift standing on plates or mats. This added range of motion is wonderful for building strength and mass in the PC. I prefer reps in the 3-5 range although more or less can be beneficial. We do the deadlift as an assistance exercise and base our percentages off of our 1RM on the squat and usually stay between 67% and 91% of our squat for 2-3 sets of 3-5 reps.

Romanian Deadlift
The RDL is another wonderful exercise for building strength in the PC. The proper technique is an arched back, shoulder blades together, knees slightly bent, weight on the heels, and bending at the waist and not through the back. Once the back starts to lose the arch, its time to come up. This exercise also has the ability to deliver and intense stretch to the hamstrings if done properly. We base our percentages off of the clean and usually stay between 61% and 76% for 6-10 reps.

Band Good Mornings
I have always loved band good mornings. We do high reps at the end of our training session, usually up to 20-25 reps for multiple sets. During extra workouts, we have guys do a set number like 75-100 in as many sets as it takes. You can do these straight legged, bent legged, squatting, etc. It doesn't really matter and you can change within a set if you like.

Barbell Good Mornings
To this day this is about the only thing that I can count on to make my deadlift go up. For young athletes it can be very frustrating to teach them to keep an arch. The technique is basically the same as the RDL except the bar is on the traps. We keep the reps to 6-10 and base it off of our snatch so lighter weights can be used although I am not against going heavier when proper technique is achieved. To me, this may still be the king of PC exercises when done correctly.

Below Parallel Squats
Whether you do these on a low box or free, low squats are still a great exercise for posterior chain development and to me more so for the low back and glutes although much of that depends on body structure.

Sled Drags
Walking with a weight sled is wonderful for bulding the hamstrings and contributing to recovery. The most absolute awful variation of sled dragging is walking holding the straps between your legs. You will be bent over the entire time, and the hamstrings get destroyed. This is very uncomfortable and makes you look rather ridiculous.

Band Pullthroughs
This is another of my favorites. Take a large jumpstretch band and choke it around something sturdy, preferably a squat rack. Face away from it and place the band around your traps like a band good morning. Walk out a few feet, let the band pull you through your legs for a stretch and then stand up. You will have to lean out to keep from falling back and this usually takes some learning to be able to perform correctly. Reallly squeeze the glutes hard and be sure to achieve full hip extension. We also teach a wide stance but this is more for stability than anything. It probably doesn't matter. We keep reps on this in 8-15 range, also.

These are just a few of the exercises that we use on a weekly basis. Our staples are pullthrough, band good mornings, and of course we squat and clean every week. The other things we rotate in and there are some I didn't mention that are worth while. We use a full body program three days per week and we hit the PC chain at some point on every one of those days.