Exercise selection for the hamstrings: a guide

The hamstrings have four heads, and all heads flex the knee. Minus the short head of the biceps femoris, the hamstrings also extend the hips. Good hamstring exercise selection therefore needs two types of exercises: leg curls and hip hinges. Exercises like squats and leg presses likely aren’t great for building the hamstrings. Recent studies illustrated this, showing that hip thrusts and barbell squats didn’t significantly grow the hamstrings, and neither did variations of squats with different knee flexion angles. The hamstrings are biarticular, meaning they help extend the hips but also generate torque to flex the knees, actively resisting the quads. To circumvent this issue, the body recruits muscles that don’t present this problem. Compound movements that require large degrees of torque to achieve both knee extension and hip extension simultaneously likely aren’t great for hamstring growth. Instead, making hip hinges effective requires keeping the knee joint relatively fixed and minimizing knee extension demands. Hypertrophy patterns may differ between leg curls and hip hinges, with certain exercises growing specific hamstrings heads more effectively. Studies have shown that hip hinges, such as the Nordic hamstring curl, may be better for long head and semimembranosus growth, while leg curls, such as the Nordic hamstring curl variant, may be better for short head and semitendinosus growth. This forms a compelling rationale for including both exercises in training. However, more research is needed to fully understand the optimal exercise selection for the hamstrings.