The 12 Best Hamstring Exercises for Muscle Mass, Strength, and More

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The 12 Best Hamstring Exercises for Muscle Mass, Strength, and More

“Don’t skip leg day” has almost become a meme in the gym, warning dedicated lifters to give lower body training as much emphasis, intensity, and attention as their upper body.

That’s all well and good, but even when it comes to “leg day,” many lifters still end up skipping a relatively large portion of their lower body. Not even addressing the flamingo-legged elephant in the room that is calf training. The more urgent body part that deserves your attention is the hamstrings.

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Whether it’s for athletic performance, total-body power, or a complete and well-developed set of legs, here are some must-do movements to target the backs of your thighs.

Best Hamstring Exercises

Romanian Deadlift

While the conventional deadlift is known for building serious power and size in the entire posterior chain (lower back, glutes, and hamstrings), the Romanian deadlift zones in even further on that growth stimulus by adjusting the range of motion and body positioning.

By keeping your legs very slightly bent, put your hamstrings into a longer stretched position while also forcing them to contract harder during hip extension, which both contribute to greater growth.(1)

How to Do the Romanian Deadlift

Stand holding a barbell with a slightly wider than shoulder-width, overhand grip. Pull your shoulder blades back and raise your chest. Slightly bend your knees and push your glutes toward the wall behind you.

Focus on feeling your hamstrings stretch as you “reach” your tailbone to the wall. When the bar reaches as low as possible without rounding your back, drive your heels “through” the ground and push your hips forward to return upright.

Benefits of the Romanian Deadlift

  • As a barbell movement, the Romanian deadlift allows the use of potentially heavy weights, which contributes to strength gains.
  • This movement puts the target muscle through a long range of motion with a deep stretch, which benefits muscle growth.

Split-Stance Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift

Single-leg training can be highly beneficial for strength, power, and muscle growth.(2) However, many lifters struggle with balance to the detriment of any single-leg exercise. Taking a staggered or split-stance drastically reduces the balance demands while maintaining the single-leg emphasis.

The split-stance dumbbell Romanian deadlift allows you to focus on working the hamstrings of your lead leg, while your rear leg provides just enough stability to stay steady. Using dumbbells instead of a barbell allows a longer range of motion while reducing lower back strain.

How to Do the Split-Stance Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift

Stand with a dumbbell in each hand by your sides. Take a shoulder-width stance with the toes of one foot in line with the heel of the lead foot. Keep your back straight while pushing your hips and glutes behind you. Allow your hands to face each other as the weights lower toward your front foot. Pull with your front leg, not the rear foot, to stand upright. Perform all reps on one leg before switching sides.

Benefits of the Split-Stance Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift

  • This movement pairs the benefits of single-leg training with the stability of a bilateral (two-legged) exercise.
  • The split-stance dumbbell Romanian deadlift allows a significant muscle-building stimulus from relatively light weights, due to the stance and leverage.

Single-Leg Single-Arm Romanian Deadlift

The single-leg, single-arm Romanian deadlift might look, or even sound, more like a circus trick than a serious training exercise. But it’s a top-level choice for muscle-building tension and high-performance athleticism.

By requiring one leg to provide stability and the opposite arm to carry the weight, you’re creating a total-body movement that hits your legs, core, and back like nothing else.

How to Do the Single-Leg Single-Arm Romanian Deadlift

Stand with a dumbbell in your left hand, by your side with your palm facing your body. Slightly bend your right knee, lean forward at your hips, and let your left leg raise into the air as the weight moves toward the ground. Avoid twisting your shoulders or rounding your spine. Move slowly to control the weight and maintain balance. When you’re reached as far as your mobility allows, slowly return to the starting position. Perform all reps on one side before switching hands and legs.

Benefits of the Single-Leg Single-Arm Romanian Deadlift

  • This comprehensive exercise works the “posterior oblique sling” — a series of muscles which play a key role in posture, especially when walking and moving.
  • The single-leg, single arm Romanian deadlift strongly works the oblique muscles of the abs and core.
  • Stabilizer muscles in the ankles, knees, hips, and shoulders are recruited, making the exercise an efficient way to improve joint health.(3)

Standing Leg Curl

The standing leg curl machine can be found in several different but similar varieties. Some allow your non-working foot to be planted firmly on the ground in a fully standing position while other machines, sometimes called “kneeling leg curls” have a specialized pad to support your non-working leg in a bent position. The overall result and performance is the same with either.

Standing leg curls allow you to emphasize knee flexion (bending your leg), a key function of the hamstring muscle. An added benefit of the standing machine is performing the work unilaterally, targeting each leg on its own.

How to Do the Standing Leg Curl

Setup in the machine with the curl pad placed just above the ankle of the working leg. Secure your torso in position using any available handles. Brace your core and squeeze the heel of your leg toward your glutes. Achieve a complete range of motion. Lower the weight under control until your leg is fully straightened. Perform all reps on one side before switching legs.

Benefits of the Standing Leg Curl

  • The standing leg curl applies constant tension to the target muscle, unlike free weight movements which apply varying levels of resistance due to gravity.
  • Unilateral (single-leg) training can help to address and correct muscular imbalances between sides.
  • The design of the machine limits your ability to reduce muscle activation by using full-body momentum to swing the weight.

Seated Leg Curl

The seated leg curl, like many machines, requires some individualized setup for the most productive training experience. Most machines have an adjustable back pad, thigh support, and ankle pad which must be correctly set in place to keep your body in the most efficient position. Most people, however, skip this crucial step.

This strict movement can provide an intense hamstring contraction with little to no contribution from other body parts, making it an ideal muscle-builder.

How to Do the Seated Leg Curl

Adjust the back pad to position your knee joint in line with the pivoting leg attachment. Set the thigh pad to secure against the tops of your quadriceps. Adjust the ankle pad to sit just above your heel. Brace your core and drive through your heels to reach a full contraction, with your feet well-under the seat of the machine. Straighten your legs under control.

Benefits of the Seated Leg Curl

  • The seated leg curl puts the body in nearly identical positioning as the quadriceps-focused leg extension while training the direct opposite muscle group, making the two movements an ideal superset.
  • This machine provides significant support which eliminates momentum and removes your ability to lift the weight using anything but strict hamstring activation, leading to a greater muscle-building stimulus.
  • The seated position changes the stretch on your hamstring muscles, which may contribute to greater growth compared to a lying leg curl.(4) 

Lying Leg Curl

The lying leg curl may be the most popular hamstring exercise, but it’s also one often done incorrectly. Many lifters hike their hips off the pad as they curl, which shifts focus away from their hamstrings and onto their glutes and hip flexors.

To maximize hamstring recruitment, it’s essential to keep your hips pinned to the pad throughout the entire repetition. Some lifters find it necessary to raise their upper body onto their forearms, or even hold themselves up using straight arms, to keep their hips in position.

How to Do the Lying Leg Curl

Lie face down on the machine with the pad resting above your ankles. Flex your abs to ensure a stable upper body. Steadily bring your heels as close as possible to your glutes. Ideally, they should be able to touch briefly. Lower the weight under control.

Benefits of the Lying Leg Curl

  • The lying position puts your hamstrings into a long stretched position, which can help improve hamstring flexibility and growth.
  • The lying leg curl allows for a strong peak contraction, which can contribute to building strength and muscle.

High Leg Press

The leg press is a common and effective exercise for quadriceps growth, but a slight foot adjustment can shift muscle recruitment and emphasize your hamstrings.

Setting your feet relatively higher on the pressing platform than in the traditional leg press will emphasize the hamstrings (and glutes) more than the quadriceps.(5) This turns the exercise into a highly effective hamstring movement which also allows relatively heavy weights.

How to Do the High Leg Press

Sit in a leg press machine and place your feet shoulder-width apart with your toes near the top of the foot platform. Keep your feet flat as you lower the weight as far as your mobility allows. Your lower back should remain in contact with the pad at all times. From the bottom position, straighten your legs to near lockout. 

Benefits of the High Leg Press

  • The high leg press allows you to work the hamstrings using heavy weights, which contributes to muscle growth and strength gains.
  • This leg press variation can be performed toward the end of a hamstring-focused workout, to fully exhaust the fatigued muscle, or at the beginning of a hamstring workout to overload the target muscle with heavy weights.

Kettlebell Swing

The kettlebell swing is one of the most widely known kettlebell exercises and can be programmed for muscle-building, strength, conditioning, or fat loss.

Unlike many exercises in the gym, the kettlebell swing primarily emphasizes the concentric (lifting) phase of each repetition with relatively less emphasis on the eccentric (lowering) phase. This helps to improve power output while also stimulating muscle growth.

How to Do the Kettlebell Swing

Stand with your feet well-beyond shoulder-width apart, with a kettlebell on the ground several inches in front of your toes. Bend your legs slightly and drive your hips back as you grab the top handle of the kettlebell using a palm-down grip with both hands. Pull the kettlebell back toward your body, letting it swing just behind your legs. Brace your core and keep your back straight as you contract your lower body to bring the weight near chest-height using the hip drive, not actively lifting with your arms. Allow the weight to fall back along its path just behind your legs and repeat.

Benefits of the Kettlebell Swing