Post 14: Things to Consider When Training Hamstrings

          These are hamstrings. Learn them, know them, love them. If you don't, they'll get you back. Few things are more painful and debilitating than a hamstring injury. We all know why we train; to become stronger, more efficient, bigger, faster, whatever. Do we train in proportion though? I've heard a number of different ratios for hamstring strength, but the going rate seems to be about 66% of your quad strength. If this is the case, we need to ask ourselves how much of our leg workouts are actually hamstring exercises. Furthermore, what percentage of our hamstring workouts involve knee flexion? What percentage of our hamstring workouts involve hip extension? 

        Since the hamstrings group crosses two joints, (hip and knee) it's capable of producing two movements. See Post 3: Synergistic and Biarticular Muscle Action for more info. Like I said in the first paragraph, the hamstring can flex the knee, but it can also extend the hip. Athletic movement requires ballistic hip extension. For those of you who are still doubting that this matters: Knee Flexion, whether on a slide board, Swiss ball, curl machine or anything else, is concentric-dominated action, the same type of action the hamstrings use in decelerating and stopping. Although there may be a place in your program for using these concentric movements in terms of basic strength accumulation, Hip Extension is an eccentric contraction - the same one athletes use when running and jumping. In favour of proper programming, you SHOULD include both of these in combination with some well-rounded gluteal training.

          Hopefully we are all in agreement that hamstring training is important. So now, Exercise Selection; most "civilian" hamstring exercises involve knee flexion. You'll always find a ton of people at the gym doing leg curls. Unfortunately, these confused ideas about hamstring workouts have seeped through a crack somewhere in the S&C world. I know I'm being meticulous about this, but I have opinions and an ego. You don't have to read my article - this isn't Russia. Like I said earlier, the hamstrings function to extend the hips and to flex the knees. The latter which is used most commonly as the movement for training hamstrings. The truth of the matter however, is that athletic movement requires hamstrings that are better able and trained to extend the hips. Below are a few videos of exercises that involve the hamstrings assisting in hip extension. 

          The explosive nature of powerful hip extension exercises are much more similar to the characteristics of hip extension in sport. Ballistic movement with high loading needs to be trained the same way, and the truth of the matter is: a lot of high-rep, concentric-dominated hamstring curls just aren't going to cut it for injury prevention, or positive carry-over to athletic movement.

-Alex