Execution Cues:
Cable Pullthroughs:
- Set-up on a cable pulley that is ~12 inches from the bottom. Use a long strap with individual handles or rope attachment.
- Straddle the attachment with it running between your legs and hold one end in each hand. Your hands should be flush against the inside of your thighs with your arms fully extended, shoulder blades protracted, and T-spine slightly flexed. Slowly lean your center of mass forward to create tension in the cable and lift the load from the stack.
- With the cable running between your legs, carefully walk away from the pulley until you're a few feet clear. Now, find a stable base of support. Stand up tall with your feet slightly wider than shoulder width and externally rotated. Extend your hips into your forearms while your hands are passively holding onto the attachment. The cable should be angled ~30º upward.
- From here, begin the eccentric by carefully hinging back at the hips. Keep your pelvis neutral. Allow your knees to flex slightly but make sure not to turn the pattern into a squat. Your weight should be centered over your mid foot to prevent the cable from pulling you off balance.
- The range-of-motion of hip flexion should be short and concise to keep the tension in the glutes. Don't attempt to reach your hands through your legs, and instead, keep your hands close to the inside of the thighs.
- When hip flexion has been exhausted, reverse the motion by extending your hips into your forearms. Lockout the hips deliberately and contract your glutes.
- End the set by slowly walking the cable back to the pulley and setting the load down.
GHR Hyperextensions:
- These are ONLY meant to be done on a Glute-Ham Raises apparatus. This movement is fundamentally different from 45º hypers.
- Adjust the foot plate and ankle rollers as needed so that your body would be parallel to the floor when fully extended. The end of the thigh pad should be just below your hip crease when in position.
- Climb into the apparatus and carefully lock your ankles into the rollers with your knees resting on the thigh pads. Slowly extend your knees and slide your body position forward on the apparatus. "Walk" yourself out until your knees and hips are fully extended.
- Your ankles should be locked into the ankle pads, thighs stabilized against the apparatus pad, and upper body hovering unsupported.
- Once stable and maintaining full-body extension, begin the eccentric by slowly allowing your hips to flex as gravity pulls your torso down. Keep your knees extended and spine neutral.
- Control the descent until the natural hip flexion from gravity has been exhausted. In this terminal end-range, there should be no active resistance.
- From this point, pivot into the concentric by extending your hips into the pad until back to parallel. Maintain spinal neutrality throughout and contract your glutes hard in extension.
Key Similarities:
- Hip hinges
- Primarily target the glutes, hamstrings and erectors (though to varying degrees)
- Very low axial loading
- Primary vector of force is similar in both (horizontal hip extension)
- In conjunction with the above, low risk of injury
- Despite lack of complexity, execution can be anecdotally challenging to perfect
- Work best when reps are intermediate-to-high (8-30)
- Each can be used for metabolic work
Key Differences:
- Pullthroughs will be limited mostly by stability whereas Hypers are going to be primarily restricted by strength and muscular failure.
- Modality requirements are vastly different with Pullthroughs requiring an adjustable cable tower and specific attachments while the Hypers have to be done on a GHR apparatus which is somewhat rare.
- Pullthroughs are much better suited for training the hinge pattern and ingraining glute contraction strength making them more of a supplemental variation for hypertrophy (they're better for training tangential qualities that then lead to hypertrophy). Hypers should be used to grow the glutes and hamstrings as a primary variation.
- Hypers are less customizable to individual differences (height, strength levels, specific weaknesses, etc) while Pullthroughs allow for almost unlimited adjustability.
- Hypers should be trained closer to muscular failure to achieve the best outcomes. Pullthroughs should stay relatively shy of muscular failure due to balance and stability limitations.
- As an addendum to the above, hypers can leverage intensity techniques like load drop sets, cluster sets, rest pause sets, etc more easily. Pullthroughs aren't a great candidate for intensity techniques.
Primary Use Case for Cable Pullthroughs:
- Ingrain Hip Hinge pattern
- Strengthen Mind-Muscle Connection in Glutes
Primary Use Case for GHR Hyperextensions:
- Hypertrophy for Glutes and Hamstrings
