Hamstring Exercise Remedial

So Few Hamstring Exercise Choices — and Those Few Done Wrong

So few hamstring exercise choices — and those few done wrong!

The hamstrings are critically important muscles. There is no speed without powerful thigh biceps. There is no great leaping or bounding without steel-cable hamstring muscles. Strong hamstrings are needed to counterbalance powerful thigh muscles; otherwise, muscle imbalances can be created. Over time, without proper hamstring exercise, imbalances can contribute to pulls, tears, or rips.

Injury risk rises when a far weaker muscle is continually forced to keep up with a stronger muscle on the other side of a limb. Optimally, for every progressive resistance set of thigh work, the athlete performs a complementary set of hamstring exercise. Balanced training creates symmetrical physical development. Neglecting the hard-to-train hamstrings is an understandable mistake, given the paucity of exercise choices.

Why Hamstrings Are Hard to Isolate

Underdeveloped hamstrings are epidemic. The hamstrings are among the most difficult muscles to effectively isolate. Compound isolation difficulties with a decided lack of hamstring exercise variety, and this lack of choice contributes mightily to hamstring neglect. For much of the general training populace, hamstring training is limited to one exercise: the lying leg curl.

If you train at a fancy facility, you might have access to a seated leg curl, the same movement pattern done sitting upright. No other muscle or muscle group has fewer useful exercise choices. For the lying leg curl to do as intended, isolate, build, and strengthen the hamstrings from knee to glutes, exacting technique is required.

Done right, the lying leg curl can skillfully activate and isolate both the lower hamstrings and the hard-to-isolate proximal hamstrings near the glute tie-in. David Weck, sprint expert, points out that when it comes to improving sprint speed, the upper hamstring / glute tie-in is far more important than many trainees realize. The stronger the upper hamstrings are, the greater the sprinter’s potential rate of turnover, how fast the legs can be alternated.

The sprinter’s rate of turnover is a huge factor in determining all-out top speed, I paraphrase David. The goal is to strengthen the hamstrings from bottom to top and all points in between. The leg curl needs to be executed with total concentration and precision. The proximal hamstrings are difficult to isolate. There is a technique for doing so that requires complete attention and effort.

The Wrong Way to Do a Lying Leg Curl

Most trainees do the lying leg curl incorrectly. The function of the hamstrings is similar to that of the biceps: just as there are proper ways to perform various types of arm curls, there are proper ways to do leg curls.

The easiest way to leg curl is to jolt the pad upward with the back of the leg to start the concentric phase of the rep. A jolt makes the start easier. It creates momentum that carries the payload to the sticking point. At the sticking point, the leg curler allows the hips to rise as the rep gets tough.

Letting the hips rise improves leverage. Letting the hips come up makes it possible to slide through the sticking point. Don’t avoid or slide through sticking points. Find and embrace the sticking point. Struggling through sticking points is where the muscle and strength gains reside. No one pulls a jolted, hip-rise leg curl to full completion. A shortened rep stroke makes the lying leg curl easier yet.

At the top of the first rep, the leg curler allows the weight to free-fall, no negative resistance whatsoever. The leg curler catches the rebound and synchronizes the next jolt to make the start of the subsequent reps even easier. All these little technical tricks make leg curls easier. Easier in progressive resistance training will not trigger the deepest adaptive response. Easier reps, partial reps, deliver subpar results.

Leg Curl Perfection

Our strategy is to make lying leg curls more difficult. This is not too hard to figure out. Do the opposite of all your intuitive instincts. Instead of jolting or jerking to get the leg curl poundage moving, slash the poundage and use a purposefully slowed start. This is incredibly difficult and causes the lower hamstrings to engage instantly and fully.

Next: avoid the natural inclination to let the hips rise. Instead of letting them rise as the rep gets tough, drive the hips into the bench.

The slowed start and hip drive exponentially increase the degree of difficulty. The hip drive taxes the mid-hamstrings. The concentric phase uses a full range of motion. Each rep is pulled toward the glutes as far as possible. The final phase of each lying leg curl rep is to lift the knees off the bench to finish each rep. Lifting the knees at the end of the range of motion forces the proximal hamstrings to engage.

There is no way the knees can be successfully lifted from the pad without forcing intense hamstring flexion near the glute tie-in.

On the lowering, the eccentric, the leg-curl poundage is resisted during every inch of the descent. Instead of allowing the weight to free-fall, with zero benefit for the hams, the weight is resisted, creating a weighted negative. Don’t lower ridiculously slow; barely slowed is slow enough.

Dead-stop at the bottom of the negative before beginning the next no-jolt rep. Rep with this degree of feel and precision until technical failure, until you cannot do another strict rep. A leg curl is generally easier to exit than a failed barbell good morning or stiff-leg deadlift, but it is still not magic and not risk-free. Feel free to use the drop-set strategy if you are advanced and technically precise: perform a set of leg curls with perfection until hitting positive failure. Without getting up, drop the pin 3 to 5 plates and do another set. Advanced trainees might do two or three drop sets when recovery and joints allow.

Barbell stiff-leg deadlifts are a classic free-weight hamstring exercise when performed with precision and appropriate loading.

Other Worthy Hamstring Exercises

Humans can easily attack the biceps because we have hands. If the feet could grasp a barbell or a pair of dumbbells like hands, it would be far easier to work the thigh biceps. There are a whole series of barbell and dumbbell exercises that attack the hamstrings. These exercises can be highly problematic if done incorrectly. It takes extreme precision to hold a pair of dumbbells or a barbell in your hands and somehow isolate the hamstrings.

In almost every case, the technique involves lowering forward, usually using a purposefully arched spinal column, complete with flexed back muscles. From the standing position, the barbell or dumbbells are held in the hands at crotch height. The trainee now leans forward in a prescribed manner. The hamstrings engage and resist the eccentric lowering. This negative tension is maintained until the turnaround. On the concentric portion of the rep, the hamstrings and the hamstrings alone power the raising.

Again, the body, left to its own devices, will seek ways to make the task easier. It will recruit the spinal erectors, a much more powerful set of muscles, to “help,” which is exactly what we don’t want. It takes total concentration to use free weights and attain, then maintain, the concentration needed to isolate the hamstrings.

Free weights can dig a far deeper and more dramatic muscular inroad than lying leg curls because of the heavier payloads and extended range of motion obtainable with free-weight hamstring exercises. Types of free-weight hamstring exercises include, but are not limited to:

• Stiff-leg deadlift, barbell maintains contact with the shins and thighs.
• Stiff-leg deadlift, barbell allowed to travel forward and away from body.
• Stiff-leg deadlift off a box or weight plate.
• Stiff-leg deadlift off the floor or box using dumbbells.
• Romanian deadlift, glutes are thrust rearward.
• Good morning, light barbell behind the neck: engage the hams, not the erectors.

Revisit your approach to hamstring exercise. Revisit how you perform lying leg curls. There is more to the world of hamstring exercise than just lying leg curls. Emphasize technique and feel over poundage. Make the critical mind-muscle connection. Done right, the lifter feels the hamstrings engaged on both the negative and concentric of every rep. If you are not feeling it in the hams, the stronger erectors have taken over.

Success in training the hamstrings is dependent on focus and iron-willed concentration during the set. The instant you space out, the stronger muscular neighbor jumps in to help the weak hams, which is exactly what we don’t want. Call it a form of Iron Mindfulness. The good news is weak hamstrings, undertrained and wrongly trained, can come up quickly when suddenly subjected to “the right stuff.”

Safety Note for Hamstring Exercise

This article preserves Marty Gallagher’s RAW perspective on hamstring exercise technique. It is not individualized medical, rehabilitation, athletic-training, or programming advice.

Hamstring strains, prior tears, back pain, sciatic symptoms, knee pain, hip pain, tendon pain, and sprinting injuries should be respected. Lying leg curls, seated leg curls, stiff-leg deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, good mornings, drop sets, and training to failure should be scaled to the lifter’s body, injury history, flexibility, strength, recovery, and technical skill.

Build gradually. Warm up thoroughly. Keep the load honest. Do not chase extreme range of motion, forced stretch, heavy hip-hinging, or drop sets if technique collapses. Stop or scale back for sharp pain, sudden pulling sensation, cramping that does not resolve, numbness, radiating pain, back pain, knee pain, bruising, swelling, limping, uncontrolled descent, repeated technical collapse, or any symptom that feels different from normal training effort.

Equipment Notes for Hamstring Training

Hamstrings are not built by equipment alone. They are built by precision, concentration, progressive loading, and a refusal to let stronger neighboring muscles steal the work.

For machine-based hamstring isolation, lifters and facilities can compare selectorized gym equipment, plate-loaded leverage gym equipment, the Body-Solid Pro ClubLine S2LEC leg extension and curl, and the Legend Fitness plate-loaded standing leg curl.

For free-weight hamstring work, compare Olympic weightlifting bars, weight plates, the IRON COMPANY Iron Cowboy Powerlifting Bar and IRON COMPANY urethane Olympic grip plates. A Smith machine package such as the Body-Solid Series 7 Smith Machine package may fit certain facilities when the user, coaching, space and intended movement match.

The equipment does not create the hamstrings. The lifter’s precision creates the hamstrings.

Related Hamstring and Machine Training Reading

For a deeper equipment explanation, read What is a Glute Ham Developer or GHD?. For broader context on when machines can be genuinely useful, read 3 Exercise Machines That Actually Work.

RAW with Marty Gallagher, J.P. Brice, and Jim Steel Podcast

About the Author: Marty Gallagher

As an athlete Marty Gallagher is a national and world champion in Olympic lifting and powerlifting. He was a world champion team coach in 1991 and coached Black's Gym to five national team titles. He's also coached some of the strongest men on the planet including Kirk Karwoski when he completed his world record 1,003 lb. squat. Today he teaches the US Secret Service and Tier 1 Spec Ops on how to maximize their strength in minimal time. As a writer since 1978 he’s written for Powerlifting USA, Milo, Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Prime Fitness, Washington Post, Dragon Door and now IRON COMPANY. He’s also the author of numerous books including Purposeful Primitive, Strong Medicine, Ed Coan’s book Coan, The Man, the Myth, the Method and numerous others. Read the Marty Gallagher biography here.