What are your favorite hamstring exercises

[LK3]

warm them up well with light curls of some sort and each work out hit two ways, one sort of curling an the other one of stiff leg dl, good morning, sumo press. going really slow on the neg and fairly explosive after pause.

stretch well after

 

[Elvia1023]

I forgot to mention another fav of mine are one legged db stiff leg deadlifts. They are especially good if you have a bad lower back. Very easy to do but like anything the form needs to be spot on. I first got that idea from a fitness girl on instagram years ago. I make a lot of stuff up but have actually learned about a lot of more unusual but very effective ham, glute and hips movements from various women's pages.

As others have stated a good method is abusing your hams with a leg curl variation then getting a good stretch with a stiff leg variation. The later doesn't always have to be heavy either and sometimes I will just use a bar for good mornings or similar. Now if sldl's feel good for you I would also recommend adding in 1-2 heavy working sets but you have to be careful with frequency as it's a lot of tension for your lower back to take especially if you are loading it on back day as well. So there needs to be some thought into your programming to prevent any possible injuries. If you load your lower back heavy on back day and then train hams soon after I would keep it to heavy leg curls and one lighter weight hip hitch movement with your entire goal just to stretch out the hams as much as possible in that movement.

 

[xpoc]

Glute Ham raises on a real GnH bench. Wow. Next would by lying leg curls. Then seated leg curls. Finally, for my big movement I will use Rack RDL's. What I do not "feel" (more awkward I guess) is standing leg curls. I was a powerlifter so I love conventional deadlifts but I don't necessarily feel them in my hammies. And sumo deads I def do not feel in the hams. But I am (was) good at them.

 

[madg]

The GHR is my new love too

I got a Rogue abrams GhD when corona hit and i cant believe how hard it is

The contraction is insane

 

[RDS]

Nothing gets my hams like lunges, not even any kind of deadlifts. Am I an odd duck?

Quack?

I’m the exact same

 

[jaxino]

Stiffed dead lifts!!!

 

[Dens228]

Seated leg curls..high reps
Seated leg curls.... medium reps
Seated leg curls........rest pause set.....

Not in the same workout.

 

[lookslikesausage]

used to love SLDL but i have lower back problems. even lying leg curls aggravate my back now. so for me, it's GHR and if i have access to them a standing leg curl (Cybex & Flex made the best ones) and i really love the seated leg curl with a nice pause in the contracted position.

 

[USMuscle9403]

I love stiff legged deads but have stopped going so heavy on them. Read about anyone who has torn a hamstring and guess how they tore it? Now, I REALLY let it stretch and get a good fifteen out of it before I call it a set. I like following straight up with a leg curl of some sort. Single legged, rest pause, partials, statics, you name it. That's just a typical set.

 

[headtrainer]

1. Lying leg curls
2. Standing leg curls (1 leg at a time)
3. Seated leg curls

I never seem to get much out of stiff legged deadlifts, but I do like the dbell version over the barbell. I also like training them on a separate day than quads.

Yeah, stiff legged deadlifts work the lower back much more than the hamstrings.

 

[headtrainer]

used to love SLDL but i have lower back problems. even lying leg curls aggravate my back now. so for me, it's GHR and if i have access to them a standing leg curl (Cybex & Flex made the best ones) and i really love the seated leg curl with a nice pause in the contracted position.

Stiff legged deadlifts are an exercise that should be avoided in my opinion because they are notorious for causIng the discs in the lower back to degenerate & herniate. Leg curls will also irritate your lower back if you have a Lower back problem.

 

[lookslikesausage]

Stiff legged deadlifts are an exercise that should be avoided in my opinion because they are notorious for causIng the discs in the lower back to degenerate & herniate. Leg curls will also irritate your lower back if you have a Lower back problem.

it's been so true in my case. i used to love hitting hard sets of 6 on lying leg curls. can't do it anymore. I use an old Strive lying leg curl when i have access to it and it's for higher reps. since my back issues i had to get creative and/or use higher reps.

 

[DOGGCRAPP]

If you can find the right leg press (with a small plate ) and you put your foot up to the top and to the (left or right depending on leg) with pushing with the heel only (bottom half of foot on plate, top half of foot off plate)...you will absolutely smoke your hamstrings doing deep one legged presses for 20-50 reps on that thing (progressively always progressively)

 

[USMuscle9403]

If you can find the right leg press (with a small plate ) and you put your foot up to the top and to the (left or right depending on leg) with pushing with the heel only (bottom half of foot on plate, top half of foot off plate)...you will absolutely smoke your hamstrings doing deep one legged presses for 20-50 reps on that thing (progressively always progressively)

Heel presses are a given. I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't take advantage of them. I've started to favor one legged, as well. Deep as hell, high reps.

 

[headtrainer]

it's been so true in my case. i used to love hitting hard sets of 6 on lying leg curls. can't do it anymore. I use an old Strive lying leg curl when i have access to it and it's for higher reps. since my back issues i had to get creative and/or use higher reps.

I get some hamstring work by doing leg presses with my feet up high on the platform. I have to do them one leg at a time like a split squat while keeping all the pressure on the upper leg. I put the other leg on the lower part of the platform to take pressure off my lower back. Works great for people with back problems and it nails the glutes!

 

[headtrainer]

If you can find the right leg press (with a small plate ) and you put your foot up to the top and to the (left or right depending on leg) with pushing with the heel only (bottom half of foot on plate, top half of foot off plate)...you will absolutely smoke your hamstrings doing deep one legged presses for 20-50 reps on that thing (progressively always progressively)

Yes, I believe what you just explained is how I build my hams/glutes. But I get the most benefits doing around 10 reps per set for 6-8 work sets per week.

 

[USMuscle9403]

So you're fairly low reps with them, interesting. What I'd call low reps, anyway. You're right, hammers glutes like nobody's business, too. Awesome exercise.

 

[Elvia1023]

I think if someone wanted to bring up their hams they can't go wrong with something like...

Day 1
Curl variation (seated for example).
Leg Press (heels, high and wide).

Day 2
Curl variation (lying for example).
Stiff Leg Deadlift.

It's worth mentioning the use of unilateral training like I did in a past post in this thread. You could do unilateral training for all of those movements. I personally find using one leg at a time safer for my lower back during certain movements and you can try negative rep training for leg curls (mentioned in my last post).

Now the above is for guys who could be doing a PPL or upper/lower split or perhaps they just want to prioritize their hamstrings so the 2 sessions fit in 1 week. 1 could be on leg day and the other on back day for example. Others may only want to do 1 big hamstring session per week and in that event they could combine both days into 1 session or perhaps just do 1 curl variation, stiff leg deadlift and leg press.

 

[Fit2Serve]

i started working out at home and have minimal equipment (barbell and dumbells and swiss ball and treadmill) so options are a bit limited but its actually been fun.
my faves right now are:
-swiss ball leg curls (lie on floor and put ur heels on top of swiss ball, make a plank w ur body and u curl the ball towards u as hips go up)
-lying dumbell leg curls (facedown on ground, hold dumbell w feet and do curls)
-F2S

 

[Cv215]

Straight leg dead lifts and laying leg curls and then maybe some seated leg curls at the end.

I noticed if i try to use a good amount of weight in the 12-15 rep range on laying leg curls they seem to run out of juice very quick. When i move on to seated leg curls i can barely do the very first plate. In fact i can barely leg curl just the weight of my own legs. Idk if its like a pump or some type of tightness possibly getting in the way and not actually fatigue.