Greatest 12 Hamstring Workouts Ranked: Construct Greater, Stronger Legs—Smarter

Your hamstrings aren’t simply back-of-the-leg filler however crucial for energy, pace, and damage prevention. Revolutionary hamstring coaching makes a distinction, whether or not you’re sprinting, deadlifting, or simply making an attempt to thicken up your posterior chain. However not all hamstring workouts are created equal.

Hamstrings are a biarticular muscle group that crosses the hip and knee joints. Which means to coach them fully, you must goal each hip extension (assume Romanian deadlifts) and knee flexion (like leg curls). In addition they are inclined to get well extra slowly than quads, so hitting them two occasions per week with the right combination of quantity and depth is the candy spot for development.

On this installment of our “Greatest to Worst” workouts collection, we’re breaking down hamstring workouts by their effectiveness in focusing on and stimulating true hypertrophy. From exact, meat-and-potatoes mass-builders to those who won’t be price your weekly quantity, this checklist of greatest hamstring workouts will assist you program with intent—and stack slabs of muscle on the again of your legs.

Greatest Workouts to Construct Your Hamstrings

These workouts are your bread and butter for hamstring improvement. They load the hamstrings by means of a full vary of movement, maintain stress the place it counts, and steadiness knee flexion and hip hinge mechanics. If you wish to develop your hamstrings, that is the highest tier.

Mendacity Leg Curls

Traditional and laser-focused. Mendacity leg curls are pure knee flexion, locking your hips in place and dialing in on the hamstrings. They’re simple to progress and permit for killer tempo work.

Coach’s Tip: Attempt one-and-a-quarter reps to increase time underneath stress—curl all the best way up, come down 1 / 4, then again up earlier than reducing fully.

Seated Leg Curls

Arguably superior to mendacity curls as a result of stretch place. Sitting locations the hamstrings in a lengthened state, rising muscle injury and development stimulus.

Coach’s Tip: Preserve your butt glued to the seat and keep away from chaotic reps. Easy, full-range reps right here will torch your hamstrings.

Stiff-Leg Deadlifts

A staple for loading the hamstrings by means of a deep hip hinge. With minimal knee bend and a brutal stretch on the backside, this motion builds dimension and resilience.

Coach’s Tip: Preserve the bar near your physique and push your hips again such as you’re making an attempt to the touch a wall behind you.

Romanian Deadlifts (RDLs)

Typically confused with stiff-legs, RDLs contain a slight knee bend and larger management, making them preferrred for hypertrophy. The constant hamstring stress all through the motion is unmatched.

Coach’s Tip: Management the eccentric (reducing part) for 3 to 4 seconds, and maintain the reps clean. Don’t bounce or let momentum take over.

Common Workouts to Construct Your Hamstrings

These workouts positively prepare your hamstrings, however they arrive with trade-offs, like over-involving the glutes or limiting stress. Consider these as robust accent strikes (excluding standard deadlifts) that help your essential lifts or present selection.

Standard Deadlifts

They construct total-body energy and hit the hamstrings laborious, however they’re extra of a common, strength-defining posterior chain motion. The glutes and low again usually dominate, limiting focused hamstring development.

Coach’s Tip: Use these for energy improvement, not isolation. Pair them with curls or RDLs for full protection.

Hyperextensions

Glute-heavy? Sure. However with correct type and slight tweaks, you may get stable hamstring activation. The secret’s controlling tempo and adjusting foot placement.

Coach’s Tip: Level your toes outward and maintain your backbone impartial to shift extra load into the hamstrings.

45-Diploma Hip Extensions

Much like hyperextensions however with a set angle. These are barely extra range-limited however nonetheless useful when dialing within the hinge.

Coach’s Tip: Transfer slowly by means of the eccentric, and don’t overextend your decrease again on the prime—give attention to the hip hinge.

Nordic Curls

Brutal and efficient, however insanely superior. Nordic curls overload the eccentric portion of knee flexion like nothing else, however most individuals don’t have the energy to do them appropriately or constantly.

Coach’s Tip: Use help bands, a companion, or carry out solely the eccentric (reducing) part slowly earlier than scaling as much as full reps.

Beneath-Common Workouts to Construct Your Hamstrings

These workouts contain the hamstrings, however don’t straight or successfully overload them. They can be utilized for selection, mobility, or gentle activation, however will not be your essential development drivers.

Squats

They’ll make your legs robust and thick, however hamstrings take a backseat to the quads and glutes throughout squats, particularly in a typical high-bar or entrance squat.

Coach’s Tip: Use squats to construct the bottom, however not as a hamstring isolation technique.

Slider Leg Curls

These look nice on Instagram and are useful for warm-ups or rehab. However they lack overload potential, and also you’ll rapidly outgrow them when it comes to hypertrophy stimulus.

Single-Leg RDLs

Good for steadiness and management, however not nice for maximal hamstring loading. These are higher as accent actions than mass-builders.

Coach’s Tip: Use lighter weights and excellent your hinge mechanics. Deal with them as a motion talent, not a muscle-building staple.

Lunges

Lunges hit many lower-body muscle tissue, however the hamstrings aren’t the prime mover. Relying on stride size and torso angle, many of the load shifts to the quads and glutes.

Coach’s Tip: Longer strides with a ahead lean can enhance hamstring engagement, however don’t anticipate important development from lunges alone.

How To Prepare For the Greatest Hamstring Features

Wish to construct stronger, thicker, injury-resistant hamstrings? Right here’s how one can program like a professional:

• Prioritize each hip extension and knee flexion: Mix leg curls and RDL-style actions to hit all heads of the hamstrings.
• Prepare hamstrings 2x per week: They reply properly to reasonable frequency with good quantity and enough relaxation between periods.
• Management the tempo: Eccentric-focused reps (3–5 seconds reducing) create extra stress, main to higher hypertrophy outcomes.
• Use machines and free weights: Combining machine curls and compound hinge actions offers you the very best of each worlds.
• Progress quantity or load—not each without delay: Add reps, units, or depth slowly and keep away from leaping too quick between overload variables.
• Prepare hamstrings after quads? Flip it: Put hamstrings first on leg day often—particularly in the event that they’re a weak level.
• Embody hamstring finishers: To finish periods with a bang, strive drop units on leg curls or RDL/pulse combos.

The Takeaway

progressive programming + strategic train choice = bulletproof hamstrings. In the event you’re chasing pace, energy, or simply next-level legs, construct your plan across the “greatest” workouts, sprinkle in a couple of “common” ones for selection, and know when to depart the remaining for warm-ups or off days.