Tips to Improve Your Hamstrings

A few months back, I was doing live play-by-play online of the IFBB North American Championships in Pittsburgh, PA, a first-rate pro qualifier that’s been promoted by Gary Udit for many years. My duties included giving brief critiques of the competitors as they came out individually before being lined up and compared against each other. In these, I only had time to point out the most obvious strong and weak points of each male and female physique competitor. Coming from a strong bodybuilding background, I had the best insights on the male bodybuilders and competitors in the new Classic Physique division. There were hundreds of them, especially factoring in the many Masters competitors, yet I found myself making the same observation with many of them to the point that I should have simply had this phrase ready to copy and paste after a while:

“Needs hamstrings.”

Great quads were rare, but there was certainly a smattering of them. From the front, I saw plenty of decent quads. This was a pro qualifier, after all. Most of these men had been at the national level for a while, or had at the very least won a few state and regional titles on their way here. Yet when the men turned to the side, things usually fell apart. Where there should have been sweeping, crescent moon hamstrings curving out from the glutes and inserting above the knee joint, there was often only a flat, meagerly developed hamstring. Why were so many of these competitors lacking in the leg biceps? There are a few explanations.

Lack of Prioritization

Many bodybuilders, even those who compete at a fairly high level, neglect their hamstrings to some extent. The only way to be sure the hams receive sufficient attention is to either train them first on leg day, or have a distinct training day for them apart from quads. It sounds simple enough, but you’d be surprised at how many bodybuilders don’t do either. Why? My best guess is that they assume hitting them on leg day after quads is fine. Unless you have some gifted genetics that allow your hams to respond very well to any type of training, that won’t cut it. By the time you have done a slew of other movements like leg extensions, squats, leg presses and hack squats, there is simply no way you could still have enough energy to do justice to a proper workout for the hamstrings. If you think so, go take a look at your legs sideways in a full-length mirror. Do they sweep outward and have that “drop” or “hang” to them when pressed up against the other leg? If not, you haven’t been training them correctly. Do them first on leg day or hit them on another day, and give them a fighting chance to equal your quads.

Insufficient Volume

How many total sets do you do for your hams compared to what you do for quads? It should be the same or at least reasonably close, but for most bodybuilders, it’s nowhere near that. What I often see is guys doing roughly 20 sets for quads, then giving short shrift to the hams with three to four sets of lying leg curls! Instead, I recommend you do two different types of leg curls for four to five work sets each, along with four to five sets of Romanian deadlifts. That would look like this, not counting warm-ups:

Lying Leg Curl             5 x 10-15

Romanian Deadlifts     5 x 10-15

Seated Leg Curls        5 x 10-15

Why two types of leg curls? The lying leg curl is the best choice for making sure you get proper resistance in the stretch position of the movement. It’s tough to get quality contractions on them with any amount of weight. In contrast, the single leg curl and seated leg curl both allow you to emphasize the contraction, while making it more difficult to get a complete stretch of the hams at the start of each rep. By doing them both, you cover all your bases. It should be said that the hamstrings do get ancillary work from compound movements like squats, leg presses and lunges. However, they still need plenty of more direct, targeted work to reach their full growth potential.

Poor Form/Lack of ROM

Few muscle groups will respond well to a truncated range of motion (ROM). You wouldn’t expect to build the best biceps you could doing curls with jerky form and only going halfway up or lowering halfway down, yet you see this all the time with various forms of leg curls. The hamstrings must be worked through their full range of motion to stimulate the best possible gains. That means beginning at a full stretch (be cognizant that lying leg curls are needed to this), and taking each rep to a complete contraction of the hamstrings. Granted, you can extend a set and make it more intense by continuing with partial reps. But don’t cheat yourself, and the hamstrings you could have, by only using half reps. As for the rep speed, it’s fine to come up at a normal rate or even faster, but you must emphasize the contraction as well as the negative by squeezing the hams at the top of each rep, then lowering under control. Never simply let the resistance drop back down. Not only are you missing out on potential gains, but dropping a leg curl or a Romanian deadlift is an easy way to tear a hamstring.

Obviously, genetics will always play a role in the development of any muscle group. That being said, it’s very safe to say that most bodybuilders would have much better hamstrings if they followed these few simply guidelines we have discussed. Put them into practice, and maybe I will be able to comment “outstanding hams!” someday soon when describing your physique!

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