Hamstring Curls: 6 Variations From Fundamental to Superior

Whether or not your health objectives are performance-related or extra about the way you look in a pair of denims, prepare to satisfy your new favourite power transfer: hamstring curls.

Positioned south of your glutes, your hamstrings are a strong (but typically neglected) muscle group that helps bend your knees, lengthen (straighten) your hips, and rotate your legs. The hamstrings come into play throughout practical actions, like strolling and climbing stairs, and might be strengthened with compound actions, just like the squat and deadlift.

However incorporating hamstring workout routines into your resistance coaching can amplify your outcomes and supply extra focused advantages associated to lower-body power and energy, damage prevention, and aesthetics (learn: a shapelier butt).

Beneath are six completely different hamstring curl variations you are able to do with no machine, starting from beginner-friendly banded leg curls to a extra superior body weight hamstring curl.

To carry out every isolation train appropriately, you’ll want entry to an train mat, resistance band, dumbbell, stability ball, bench or chair, and gliders.

1. Standing Hamstring Curl

Problem degree: straightforward to reasonable

This standing, single-leg hamstring curl might be carried out as a body weight train or with a resistance band looped round your ankles.

• Stand along with your toes hip-width aside. Place your palms in your hips or maintain onto a secure floor, just like the again of a chair or a wall, for stability.
• Shift your weight to your proper leg and, preserving your left foot flexed, slowly draw your left heel towards your butt.
• When you’ve gone so far as you may go, pause for a second. Slowly decrease your left foot to the bottom.
• Repeat for the desired variety of repetitions, then swap legs.

2. Seated Hamstring Curl

Problem degree: straightforward to reasonable

To carry out seated hamstring curls, anchor a resistance band to a pole, weight rack, or heavy fixture at about ankle peak. Prepare your chair or bench so that you simply’re dealing with the anchor level.

• Sit on the bench and lengthen your proper leg so there’s a tender bend in your knee. Loop the open finish of the resistance band across the again of your proper ankle. (Alternatively, you may place the band round each ankles to work each legs on the identical time.) There ought to be a reasonable quantity of rigidity on the band. That is your beginning place.
• Protecting your chest up and your shoulders again, slowly draw your proper heel again towards the bench so far as you may. Pause for a second.
• Slowly lengthen your leg to return to the beginning place.
• Repeat for the desired variety of reps, then swap legs.

3. Glider Hamstring Curl 

Problem degree: straightforward to reasonable

The glider hamstring curl takes the already difficult glute bridge and dials it up a notch. For those who don’t have gliders, attempt substituting paper plates or carrying slippery socks on exhausting flooring.

• Lie in your again along with your arms at your sides, knees bent 90 levels, and left heel resting on a glider.
• Have interaction your core and raise your hips so your physique types a straight line out of your shoulders to your knees. That is your beginning place.
• With management, slowly lengthen your left leg by sliding the glider away out of your hips.
• Go so far as you may whereas nonetheless sustaining management and preserving your hips lifted. Then, use your hamstrings and glutes to slip the glider again towards your hips.
• Return to the beginning place and repeat for the desired variety of reps earlier than switching sides.

4. Mendacity Hamstring Curl

Problem degree: reasonable to difficult

When carried out with a dumbbell between your toes, the mendacity hamstring curl — often known as the inclined hamstring curl — engages the hamstring muscle tissue in each legs. You can even anchor one finish of a resistance band to a pole, weight rack, or heavy fixture at about ankle peak and slip the opposite finish of the band round one or each ankles.

• Lie face down along with your legs collectively and your brow resting in your palms. For those who’re utilizing a dumbbell, place the deal with between your toes. For those who’re utilizing a resistance band, ensure you’re dealing with away from the anchor level and loop the open finish across the backs of each ankles. (For those who’d choose to work one leg at a time, loop it round one ankle and maintain the opposite leg prolonged on the ground.)
• Have interaction your core and, preserving your toes flexed, slowly draw your heels towards your butt. Proceed to maintain your thighs pressed in opposition to the bottom.
• When you’ve gone so far as you may, pause, then slowly decrease your toes again towards the bottom.
• Repeat for the desired variety of reps. (For those who go for the single-leg mendacity hamstring curl, full each repetition on one leg earlier than switching sides.)

5. Stability Ball Hamstring Curl

Problem degree: reasonable to difficult

By introducing a component of instability, the Swiss ball hamstring curl assessments your stability and fires up your core muscle tissue whereas additionally constructing power in your hamstrings.

• Lie face up along with your again on the bottom, legs prolonged, and calves resting on the soundness ball. Open your arms to a “T” place to assist stability.
• Have interaction your core, contract your glutes, and press the backs of your legs into the ball to raise your butt off the bottom till your physique types a straight line out of your shoulders to your ankles. That is the beginning place.
• Along with your toes flexed, slowly draw your heels towards your butt, permitting the ball to roll towards you and underneath your toes.
• Pause, then slowly lengthen your legs, rolling the ball away from you, to return to the beginning place.
• Repeat, preserving your hips lifted, for the desired variety of reps.

6. Nordic Hamstring Curl

Problem degree: difficult

For those who’re in search of a problem, give the Nordic hamstring curl a shot. Carried out from a kneeling place, this superior motion requires sufficient hamstring power to each decrease and raise your torso with management.

• Begin in a tall kneeling place. (Place a rolled-up towel or pad underneath your knees for consolation.) Anchor your toes by slipping your heels underneath a heavy weight rack or piece of furnishings, or ask a companion to carry your toes in place.
• Protecting your core engaged, slowly lean ahead at your knees and decrease your torso to the ground. Use your glutes and hamstrings to manage your descent.
• When you’re just a few inches from the ground, enable your palms to catch the burden of your physique in opposition to the bottom. Instantly draw your self again as much as a tall kneeling place utilizing your hamstrings and glutes. If vital, use your palms to help you.
• Repeat for the desired variety of reps.

Hamstring Curls: Advantages

Your hamstring muscle tissue play a crucial position in flexing your knees and lengthening and rotating your hips. You want them for on a regular basis actions like strolling, working, squatting, climbing stairs, and bending over.

Including hamstring curls to your exercise may also help you preserve wholesome practical motion patterns by strengthening these muscle tissue, however that’s not their solely profit. Listed below are just a few extra causes to contemplate incorporating leg curls into your strength-training routine.

Versatility

There’s a hamstring curl choice for each degree of capacity and expertise (simply take a look at the above listing of choices), and you’ll simply make every variation more durable or simpler by adjusting the resistance.

Energy and energy

The hamstring muscle tissue include a considerable amount of kind II muscle fibers, that are liable for shortly producing massive quantities of drive. So, whether or not you play a sport or simply need to climb stairs quicker, hamstring curls may also help you develop extra lower-body power.

Damage prevention

Analysis exhibits that recurrently performing the hamstring curl — the Nordic hamstring curl, particularly, which applies load to the hamstrings as they’re lengthened — might cut back the speed of sports-related hamstring accidents by as much as 51 %.

Addresses imbalances

As visible creatures, we are likely to give attention to the “mirror muscle tissue,” or the physique elements we are able to see, and overlook concerning the muscle tissue that make up the posterior chain. This may create problematic muscle imbalances that may result in motion compensations and damage.

Workouts that strengthen the muscle tissue that run alongside the bottom of the physique, just like the hamstring curl, may also help restore and/or preserve stability.

A shapely rear

It’s not all concerning the legs. Effectively-defined hamstrings may also help intensify your butt, making it look tighter and extra lifted. Hamstring curls can set off hypertrophy, or muscle development, which is liable for a extra shapely booty.

Hamstring Curls: Muscle tissues Labored

Whereas some leg curl variations like the soundness ball hamstring curl and the glider hamstring curl interact the glutes and deep core muscle tissue, all hamstring curl workout routines primarily goal the hamstrings, a gaggle of muscle tissue positioned on the backs of your thighs.

The anatomy of the hamstrings, which originate on the pelvis and insert into the knee simply above the calve, is comprised of three separate muscle tissue.

Biceps femoris

Comprised of each a protracted head and a brief head, the biceps femoris is the outermost hamstring muscle and is liable for flexion of the knee, extending the thigh on the hip, rotating the decrease leg when the knee is barely bent, and rotating the thigh when the hip is prolonged.

Semimembranosus

The innermost hamstring, the semimembranosus additionally capabilities to flex the knee, lengthen the thigh on the hip, and help in each thigh and lower-leg rotation.

Semitendinosus

The semitendinosus, which is positioned between the biceps femoris and the semimembranosus, has primarily the identical capabilities because the semimembranosus.