Glutes and Hamstrings, Favorite Exercises?

[USMuscle9403]

Glutes, in particular.

Unfortunately, my gym is rather ill equipped with genuinely good leg equipment, so I have to get creative at times. As someone who used to squat ATG and heavy as shit all the time, I was still spinning my wheels with lower body development. Squats just don't work that well with my physiology from a hypertrophy standpoint, and my gym lacks my favorite...the hack squat; the only squat variation that put considerable size on my legs.

Right now my routine is fairly instinctive, leg press variations, leg curls, sldl, Romanian dl, Hypers and reverse hypers. My hams and glutes have come up nicely, even getting plenty of comments on them, but I want them fuckin buns of steel, goddammit.

What's your favorite for glutes and hams? Any special mechanical positions you use?

 

[MyNameIsJeff]

Hip thrusts for glutes. The exercise is kinda gay, but also effective.

 

[USMuscle9403]

I've got a good mind to start them you're definitely not the first to mention them. I know Jordan Peters is a huge fan of them, as well.

 

[jeroendebleser]

Sumo stance leg presses work well. Be careful when going deep with your lower back coming off of the seat though!

 

[Delt123]

Walking lunges has never failed me for glutes.

 

[FK86]

For hamstrings my favourite exercise is probably the seated leg curl. However, unless genetically gifted, I think the RDL is an absolute necessity to build hamstrings. It targets the muscle in a way no leg curl can.

 

[Ranchhand]

wide stance sumo with hips starting low, RDL's (done properly, Nicu Vlad style, interested to see if anyone knows this name, LOL), and walking lunges. Never have done the hip thrusters but this exercise has become so popular that I'm going to give them a try

 

[EWRECK]

Squatting over the old lady while she teases the berries. Very effective if done 3 to 7 days a week. Beneficial to prostate also.

 

[GetYucked]

Seated leg curl paired with SLDL; but using a lighter weight and standing on a band, picked it up from John Meadows and I love the combo of these two lifts together. I try to get as much blood into the muscle with the leg curl, and then lengthen it back out with the sldl.

 

[IronLion2]

All forms of hip extension

 

[cmryan]

For hammies
1) bent leg:
- GHR's. Nothing beats em if done properly. Use a band to regress and make them easier in order to get solid sets of 10-15 reps that don't have too much momentum.
2) Straight leg:
- Sumo stance good mornings.

For flutes
1) bent knee:
- Hip thrusts are awesome. Be sure to get a 1 count squeeze. I know they can appear, well, unfortunate lol. Using single leg with less weight usually solves that concern.
- Reverse lunges from a slight elevation (like 3-4")
2) Straight leg (there's so many here)
- RDL's
- Good mornings
- Kettlebell swings

 

[lookslikesausage]

i like ghr but most people do them wrong. there should be little to movement at the hips if looking to get most of the stress to the hams. heavy dl, sl dl, RDL, DB SL DL, and any powerlifting style squat where you shoot your hips far back will work, although i know you mentioned you're not into squats. one thing worth mentioning, for most people, a powerlifting squat will hip dominant. When i say hip dominant, i mean a break at the hips and pushing the butt back, as opposed to breaking at the knee first (Olympic style squat where you go knees to hams depth). The powerlifting style squat will work the glute and hams pretty hard.

 

[kodiak65]

This thing looks pretty effective for using for Nordic hamstring curls and only 40 bucks.

Amazon.com : Titan Glute Ham Glider : Sports & Outdoors

Amazon.com : Titan Glute Ham Glider : Sports & Outdoors

www.amazon.com

Also you can steal the gym office chair, sit in it and use your heels to race around the gym as fast as you can. Sounds silly but very effective, especially if youre low on leg equpiment options. Plus the shittier the chair rollers the more resistance and I've never been in a gym with a nice office chair lol

 

[buck]

The largest muscles in the glute/ham area straighten the hip so anything that causes hip to bend and straighten will work the hip/glute. From the EMG studies I have seen the glutes have the most muscle fibers firing off with a given load when they are bent around 100 degrees. The smaller muscles are activated when bending the knee. So I always preferred the lying leg curl But you have to make sure to keep the hips down.

 

[Beti ona]

Hip thrust
Glute bridge
Russian leg curls

 

[MR. BMJ]

Full deep squats
step-ups
SLDL
Hip Thrusts

Here is a recent study on Hip Thrusts vs Full Back Squats:

Int J Sports Med. 2020 Jan 23. doi: 10.1055/a-1082-1126. [Epub ahead of print]
Back Squat vs. Hip Thrust Resistance-training Programs in Well-trained Women.
Barbalho M1, Coswig V2, Souza D1, Serrão JC3, Campos MH1, Gentil P1.
Author information

Abstract
The study compared the effects of back squat (BS) and hip thrust (HT) exercises on muscle strength and hypertrophy in well-trained women. Twenty-two participants were divided in two groups: BS group (n=12, 26.4±1.32 years, 171.8±3.79 cm, and 69.5±4.9 kg) performed the BS exercise and HT group (n=10, 27.5±1.42 years, 170.8±4.4 cm, 67.5±4.7 kg) performed the HT exercise. Training was performed for 12 weeks. Before and after the training period, participants were assessed for quadriceps femoris and gluteus maximus muscle thickness (MT) and 1 repetition maximum (1RM) test on the BS and HT. Both groups significantly increased hip extensors MT and HT 1RM; however, the improvements in BS group were higher than in HT group on quadriceps femoris (12.2% for BS and 2% for HT, P<0.001) and gluteus maximus MT (9.4% for BS and 3.7% for HT, P=0.001) and BS 1 RM (35.9% for BS and 4.3% for HT, P<0.001). BS was more efficient than HT, since it resulted in greater muscle hypertrophy of the quadriceps femoris and gluteus maximus, increases in BS 1RM and similar increases in HT.
© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.
PMID: 31975359 DOI: 10.1055/a-1082-1126

 

[cbbram]

My gym sucks for leg equipment also I I just do the basic stuff like squats, and leg curls.

 

[Pericles]

For hamstrings my favourite exercise is probably the seated leg curl. However, unless genetically gifted, I think the RDL is an absolute necessity to build hamstrings. It targets the muscle in a way no leg curl can.

That's bc your hamstrings flex the knee AND extend the hip. Rdl are superior in everyway

 

[beastmode121]

Any exercise that keep tension on the muscle .. I do them all

 

[Jaxz]

Hip thrusters and to the ground squats like alot of people have already said