UFC Legend Georges St-Pierre Nailed an Impossibly Hard Leg Day Exercise

You might consider your leg days to be hardcore if they’re filled with squat and thrust variations you can load up with a mountain’s worth of weight or lunges that span the length of your gym. The toughest lower body exercise you’re probably neglecting, however, is a bodyweight movement that’s fairly simple: the Nordic hamstring curl.

Pro athletes like football stars Tyreek Hill and Saquon Barkley and bodybuilders like Nsima Inyang have all shared footage of themselves taking on the deceptively tough maneuver, which requires you to lower your torso down to the floor from a kneeling position, then fire your hamstrings to raise yourself back up without using your hands for support. UFC Hall of Fame fighter (and sometimes Marvel star) Georges St-Pierre is the latest figure from the sports world to get in on the action.

St-Pierre shared a short clip of himself performing a few reps of the exercise on Instagram. He’s clearly challenged by the movement in the video, and gets excited when he nails the maneuver. “NORDIC CURL…I finally did it ✅💪,” he wrote in the video’s caption.

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St-Pierre thanked online fitness coach Ben Patrick, a.k.a. kneesovertoesguy, who appeared in the clip and observed as the former fighter nailed the reps. Patrick is known to be a proponent of the exercise, having been associated with Inyang’s attempt as well.

If you want to add Nordic curls to your own workouts, you should be prepared for an uphill climb. “You have to completely dominate the eccentric (lowering) portion of the movement or you’ll fall flat on your face, and the concentric (raising) portion requires a ton of pure hamstring strength period,” says Men’s Health fitness director Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S. “It’s also that rare bodyweight hamstring movement where you focus on flexing at the knee instead of extending at the hips, as you do during deadlift-style motions.”

Rather than attempting the full version of the exercise to start, focus on the eccentric (lowering) portion of the movement first. Take your time descending to the bottom, then use your hands to push yourself back up. Once you’re able to own the eccentric, you can attempt to take your hands out of the equation for one rep—then build up from there.

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