The Ultimate Hamstrings Workout for Advanced Lifters
Sure, you do deadlifts—but when was the last time you really trained your hamstrings for both physique and optimum athletic performance? Solve your flexibility woes—and stack up your deadlift max—with this hardcore hammy-hammerer.
The hamstrings rank as the most neglected part of the body for most lifters—and that’s a dangerous thing, given our screen-based, sedentary culture.
Hours sitting behind a desk, driving, or wedged into an airline seat can cause the pecs to shorten, and the shoulders and upper back to round forward. That’s bad enough for the body. Making things worse: Most athletes overtrain movements for the anterior chain while ignoring posterior chain movements for the glutes, back, and especially their hamstrings.
The result: a tight, inflexible body that will lead to injury. When your hip flexors are locked up, the body shuts down the glutes and makes your hamstrings less efficient (so you can say goodbye to gym-rocking deadlifts and squats). It’s all connected: Tight hamstrings are a product of tight hips, which are a product of inactivated glutes. That’s one reason hamstring strains and lower back pain are so commonplace.
So to strengthen the hamstrings, you’ll need to address them directly while also targeting the glutes and overall posterior chain. Enter the ultimate hamstrings workout for advanced lifters.
DIRECTIONS
We’re going to perform this ultimate hamstrings workout as a circuit. You’ll do 10 of these six exercises, all back-to-back, to loosen those hamstrings and strengthen your posterior chain. Don’t rest between exercises.
Do three rounds of the circuit in total. You may rest a minute between rounds if needed.
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Ian Spanier / M+F Magazine
Hand Walks
These not only lengthen your hamstrings and lower-back muscles, but also build stability in your shoulders and core.
Start with your legs straight and your hands flat on the floor. Keeping your legs straight, walk your hands out. Then, walk your feet back up to your hands, keeping your legs straight. Take baby steps using only the ankles. Avoid using the hips, knees, and quads. Do a set of 10.
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Jutta Klee / Getty
Inverted Hamstring Stretch
This will not only isolate your hamstrings, but also challenge your basic core strength and balance.
Balance on your right foot, keeping your abs tight and your shoulders back and down. Bend at the waist with both hands out to the sides—think of an airplane—and extend your left leg back as you fire the left glute. Your shoulder and heel should move together, forming a straight line. Return to starting position and switch legs, performing a set of 10 on each leg.
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James and Therese Michelfelder
Sumo Squat-to-Stand Stretch
This improves flexibility in your hamstrings and is a good indicator of how much room you have to improve (which, for most of us, is a lot).
Bend at the waist, grabbing underneath your big toes. Keeping your arms straight inside your knees, pull your hips down until they’re between your ankles and lift your chest up. Tuck your chin and try to straighten your legs, holding on to your toes as you straighten your hips and knees.
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Physio Ball Leg Curl
This improves stability and strength in the hamstrings as well as the glutes and lower back. Make sure you don’t clench your neck on the ground.
Lying face-up on the floor, put your feet on a physioball, pulling your toes toward your shins. Squeeze your glutes until your body is in a straight line from ankle to shoulder. Keeping the hips raised, pull your heels in toward your glutes. Let the ball roll back slowly as you strengthen your legs, keeping your hips elevated.
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Barbell Romanian Deadlift
Perhaps the most recognizable hamstring move, and for good reason: It’s effective in building strength in your hamstrings, glutes, lower back, and upper back. For an even tougher workout, do these reps with a count: two or three seconds down, then two or three seconds up. Start with a lower weight and work up. Form is especially key to getting full benefit from the RDL—don’t think of the exercise as bending forward, but rather as sitting back with your torso moving forward instead of staying upright.
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Marc Royce
One-Arm, One-Leg Bentover Dumbbell Row
A variation on the traditional one-arm row, this exercise will challenge you to move the weight while you use your non-lifting hand to balance on a dumbbell rack or bench.
Extend the corresponding leg of your lifting hand back. (So when you lift with your right hand, extend your right leg behind you.) This stance not only challenges you to work each side independently (as with a traditional one-arm row), but also work your hamstrings and overall core stability while inevitably lowering the dumbbell deeper. Do 10 reps on each side.
