i have never even seen a real GHR in this country, let alone used one.
The lat pull down station and bench station has been my saviour for years.
the bench staion at my gay little gym had foot rest that i can jam my feet under.
end of the movt im in an unside down bench position. i use this if the lat pull down is not appropriate/being used
I have been doing a pusedo GHR
by putting the hyper bench against the wall and weighing it down so it doesn’t move
I press my toes into the wall under the roller and position the pad at mid thigh. This way I can go up higher than horizontal and not fall down, well not all the way up though, about 45 degrees.
It’s still tough to do, but it sure trashes the hammies in a way the floor version doesn’t. The floor version just hits the bicep femoris, this puesdo version hits the whole hammie
Tried what cool describes on my 45 degree back extension, but it doesn’t work. It just ends up being a back extension with knee bend at the end.
Well interesting, my hamstrings are not as sore as I thought they would be, hardly sore at all.
But my erectors are slightly sore and my calves pretty sore!
Those Puesdo GHR really hammered my calves. I suspect the real GHR benches do the same if you press your toes into the foot plate like your supposed too. That is why the floor version is not the same, all it hits is the outter hammie (Bicep Femoris), basicly like a manual leg curl. A proper GHR is a big compound movement that fries the erectors, glutes, hamstrings from both knee and hip sides and the calves.
I wouldn’t mind getting myself a proper GHR bench one day for home 
Posterior chain has gotten a bit bigger so far this training cycle. Abs are a lot stronger than I thought. Should translate to some gains on the squat soon.
Cool the method I described hits my entire hamstring, glutes and a little of my lower back. I feel a tiny bit in my calves also but I believe thats just from the stablization the’re doing, but its minimal for me. Everyone may not get the same effect from my method but this is what I experience. I think a lot of people do not do GHR’s properly. Too many people spring up or force push themselves up with their hands and do not get the full eccentric (or is it concentric) stress. I made this mistake early on too. The proper way is to push up slightly with your hands and arms UNTIL your legs take over. Thats unless you can do them without catching yourself. If you can you, have some a pretty strong hamstrings. Once your legs take over its all hamys from there. Again this is my experience from doing them.
The actual exercises full name is glute-ham gatroc raise. So I guess that explains why it hits the calves.
Anyway you do the exercise, unless you have the thigh pad to flex your hips over you aren’t going to be able to get the full benefit of the exercise because you aren’t doing the hip-extension part.
I don’t understand what you guys are saying about a manual leg curl. I know Dave Tate mentioned that a while back though. I have used the kind of natural glute-ham raise that Christian Thibaudeau wrote about in his Hamstring article. Chad Waterbury and Coach Davies have both also recommended the natural glute-ham raise and say it is more than just a manual leg curl. It is the kind Coach Davies actually prefers because it is much more difficult. All I know is that after I do a bunch of sets of these, my hamstrings and lower back are fried.
I guess you could look at it like what CT said about chins in one of his articles. If you aren’t strong enough to pull yourself up on the concentric portion of the chinup then just do eccentric chins and you will eventually get strong enough to do full dead chins. I am guessing the same is true with the natural glute-ham raise. If you keep doing eccentric reps, you will get stronger until you gradually build up and can do the concentric part too.
I have done the manual GHR thing on an incline situp unit, lower the incline all the way dowwn, foot under rollers backwards etc
It’s not the same. You need to apply pressure with the foot against a surface to activate the hip part of the hammies better and off course the calves.
Otherwise it’s just a manual leg curl
If you kneel against a wall, foot pressing it, and roll over a boxing bag set against your thigh then that’s pretty close