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 energy transfer: hamstring curls.

Situated south of your glutes, your hamstrings are a strong (but typically ignored) muscle group that helps bend your knees, lengthen (straighten) your hips, and rotate your legs. The hamstrings come into play throughout purposeful actions, like strolling and climbing stairs, and could 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 energy and energy, harm prevention, and aesthetics (learn: a shapelier butt).

Under are six totally different hamstring curl variations you are able to do with out a 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 stage: straightforward to average

This standing, single-leg hamstring curl could 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 possibly can go, pause for a second. Slowly decrease your left foot to the bottom.
• Repeat for the desired variety of repetitions, then change legs.

2. Seated Hamstring Curl

Problem stage: straightforward to average

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

• Sit on the bench and lengthen your proper leg so there’s a mushy bend in your knee. Loop the open finish of the resistance band across the again of your proper ankle. (Alternatively, you possibly can place the band round each ankles to work each legs on the similar time.) There needs to be a average quantity of stress on the band. That is your beginning place.
• Holding your chest up and your shoulders again, slowly draw your proper heel again towards the bench so far as you possibly can. Pause for a second.
• Slowly lengthen your leg to return to the beginning place.
• Repeat for the desired variety of reps, then change legs.

3. Glider Hamstring Curl 

Problem stage: straightforward to average

The glider hamstring curl takes the already difficult glute bridge and dials it up a notch. If you happen to don’t have gliders, attempt substituting paper plates or carrying slippery socks on arduous flooring.

• Lie in your again along with your arms at your sides, knees bent 90 levels, and left heel resting on a glider.
• Interact your core and carry your hips so your physique varieties 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 possibly can 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 stage: average to difficult

When carried out with a dumbbell between your toes, the mendacity hamstring curl — often known as the susceptible hamstring curl — engages the hamstring muscle tissues in each legs. You can even anchor one finish of a resistance band to a pole, weight rack, or heavy fixture at about ankle top 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. If you happen to’re utilizing a dumbbell, place the deal with between your toes. If you happen to’re utilizing a resistance band, ensure you’re going through away from the anchor level and loop the open finish across the backs of each ankles. (If you happen to’d want to work one leg at a time, loop it round one ankle and maintain the opposite leg prolonged on the ground.)
• Interact 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 possibly can, pause, then slowly decrease your toes again towards the bottom.
• Repeat for the desired variety of reps. (If you happen to go for the single-leg mendacity hamstring curl, full each repetition on one leg earlier than switching sides.)

5. Stability Ball Hamstring Curl

Problem stage: average to difficult

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

• Lie face up along with your again on the bottom, legs prolonged, and calves resting on the steadiness ball. Open your arms to a “T” place to assist stability.
• Interact your core, contract your glutes, and press the backs of your legs into the ball to carry your butt off the bottom till your physique varieties a straight line out of your shoulders to your ankles. That is the beginning place.
• Together 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 stage: difficult

If you happen to’re on the lookout for a problem, give the Nordic hamstring curl a shot. Carried out from a kneeling place, this superior motion requires sufficient hamstring energy to each decrease and carry 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 associate to carry your toes in place.
• Holding your core engaged, slowly lean ahead at your knees and decrease your torso to the ground. Use your glutes and hamstrings to regulate your descent.
• When you’re a number of inches from the ground, enable your palms to catch the load 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 tissues play a important function in flexing your knees and increasing 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 will help you keep wholesome purposeful motion patterns by strengthening these muscle tissues, however that’s not their solely profit. Listed here are a number of extra causes to contemplate incorporating leg curls into your strength-training routine.

Versatility

There’s a hamstring curl choice for each stage of capability and expertise (simply take a look at the above checklist of choices), and you may simply make every variation tougher or simpler by adjusting the resistance.

Energy and energy

The hamstring muscle tissues comprise 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 sooner, hamstring curls will help you develop extra lower-body energy.

Harm prevention

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

Addresses imbalances

As visible creatures, we are likely to deal with the “mirror muscle tissues,” or the physique components we will see, and neglect in regards to the muscle tissues that make up the posterior chain. This may create problematic muscle imbalances that may result in motion compensations and harm.

Workout routines that strengthen the muscle tissues that run alongside the bottom of the physique, just like the hamstring curl, will help restore and/or keep stability.

A shapely rear

It’s not all in regards to the legs. Effectively-defined hamstrings will 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 tissue Labored

Whereas some leg curl variations like the steadiness ball hamstring curl and the glider hamstring curl interact the glutes and deep core muscle tissues, all hamstring curl workout routines primarily goal the hamstrings, a bunch of muscle tissues situated 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 tissues.

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 situated between the biceps femoris and the semimembranosus, has primarily the identical capabilities because the semimembranosus.