Muscle Building Tips: Hamstring Training Part 1

One of the most neglected body parts of the lower body, a well-developed set of hamstrings not only looks great, but helps to prevent common knee and lower-back injuries. The hamstrings run the length of the back of the leg and act to both flex the knee and to extend the hip. Given their location and function, there are a scarce number of lower body exercises that do not involve the hamstrings. It would seem that their ubiquitous role in lower body exercise would preclude anybody who actually trains their legs from having lagging hamstrings. Why then do many people who train their legs hard still have lagging hamstrings??? The short answer is improper training, but also extremely important and often overlooked is ones posture. Even with the most efficient hamstring training, not all trainees will respond equally to their workouts due to the position of their hip, which dictates much of good posture. This is why in exercise physiology people are often referred to as "quad-dominant", or "hip-dominant". Quad-dominant people tend to have very muscular quadriceps, good hamstrings, and absolutely no glutes. "Hip-dominant" people, on the other hand tend to have weaker quadriceps, underdeveloped hamstrings, and very well-developed glutes (i.e. shelf-ass syndrome). The major factor which dictates quad-versus hip dominance is the position of the hip; those with an anterior (forward) tilt tend to be very glute-dominant, while those with posterior tilt are very quad-dominant. The being said, for those people that have difficulty in bringing up their hamstrings, the solution is to first work on good posture/hip position by stretching the hip flexors, and strengthening the abs. This will serve to reduce the anterior tilt of the pelvis allowing greater recruitment of the hamstrings. In addition, a little-known fact is that excess-hamstring flexibility actually contributes to anterior pelvic-tilt, all other things being equal.

While it takes time, effort and consistency to alter ones posture (i.e. rotational status of the hip, there are a few strategies that can be employed right now to drastically increase the effectiveness of your hamstring training:

* Choose exercises which force the hip to extend-this reduces anterior tilt and puts the hamstrings in position where they have to contract harder. Also be careful not to flex the hips during exercises such as leg curls. We have all done this; look around at anybody doing leg curls and 90% of them will be arching their back (by flexing the hip) as they heave the weight up.
* Flex the calf - (plantar-flexion)-the gastrocnemius of the calf actually inserts on the femur, assisting in knee-flexion (bending the knee). Pre-shortening the gastroc takes it out of action during this motion. Perform leg curls with the calf flexed.
* Perform stiff-legs correctly!-stiff-leg deadlifts are one of the most abused exercises on the planet! All stiff-legs should be performed with everything from the waist-up completely rigid and the hips need to travel back (flexion) so that they can extend during the positive phase of the movement. After all, this is the job of the hamstrings during this exercise; to extend the hip! Simply bending over with a rounded back is not only ineffective, but leaves you open to injury.
* Make friends with the Swiss-ball- Swiss-ball leg curls force the hip into an extended position so that they must work much harder.

In addition to proper training technique, to maximize hamstring recruitment it is necessary to get rid of that forward pelvic tilt. Aside from benefits to hamstring development, people who suffer from low-back pain can often completely eliminate it by simply fixing their posture. Several tips to achieve accomplish this:

* Stretch!- stretch the hip-flexors (iliopsoas, psoas, and femoral head of the quadriceps)
* Train the abs (properly)- any ab exercise done correctly will recruit the hip-flexors little-if at all. This is why sit-ups should be avoided; any exercise with the feet fixed to the ground (or bench) will allow the hip flexors to bend the torso as-much or more than the abs. In other words, sit-ups suck.... Don't do them!
* For those of you with desk-jobs-remaining in the seated position for long periods of time causes the hip flexors to adaptively shorten, contributing to anterior pelvic tilt. Be sure to place an even greater emphasis on stretching the hip-flexors if you have a desk-job. At the very least, stretch out for 5-10 min after a long-day of work.

Next: check out part TWO to put together the perfect hamstring workout