When we go into a gym, it’s rare that we see someone packing serious “beef” on the posterior part of their legs. They usually carry a slice of ham instead.

What happened? Is it just an ornament?

In most cases, leg workouts are extremely focused on the quadriceps and tend to include only one isolation exercise for the Hamstrings, the posterior part of the legs, which usually is a leg curl performed at the end of your workout, right?

Well, it’s no surprise that this muscle is lagging…

The hamstring muscle group (where the bicep femoris is included) performs very important functions in terms of our motion, even though many people think this is the quads’ job.

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An athlete that doesn’t work these muscles has a high risk of injury and much less performance, since everything that these muscles do is important:

• Knee flexion;
• Hip extension.

These two movements are extremely important in our movements, including running, which has by itself acceleration/deceleration movements as well as many changes of direction. Deven though a race is primarily the results of good motor coordination, the work that needs to be done by this portion of your thighs is extremely important.

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• In order to structure a good hamstring workout, you need to understand that:
  1. You must perform knee flexion as well as hip extension;
  2. This group of muscles is built for speed, so it has a high contractile speed;
  3. They’re involved in knee stabilization.

  Having these three aspects in your mind will allow you to optimally train this portion of the legs, by focusing on the eccentric (negative) portion of the exercises, controlling it slowly, and exploding on the concentric (positive) portions!

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  Exercises to work into your routine:

  Hip Extension:

  • Romanian Deadlift;
  • Low Pulley Hip Extension;
  • Power Cleans or Snatches;

  Knee Flexion:

  • Glute-Ham Raise;
  • Leg Curl;
  • Isometric Leg Curl – 3 positions, 30 seconds each.

  .

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Pro Tips: If you find it hard activating your hamstrings, before you actually start the workout, grab on to a wall or poste and perform 10 repetitions of a Standing Body Weight leg Curl. When executing Leg Curls on a machine, try to counter the hip raise by pushing it against the pad on the machine, so that you isolate and recruit your hamstrings. You’ll see that the load will go down, but exercise execution will improve, originating better results.