Hamstring Curls: 6 Variations From Basic to Advanced
Whether your fitness goals are performance-related or more about how you look in a pair of jeans, get ready to meet your new favorite strength move: hamstring curls. Located south of your glutes, your hamstrings are a powerful (yet often overlooked) muscle group that helps bend your knees, extend (straighten) your hips, and rotate your legs. The hamstrings come into play during functional activities, like walking and climbing stairs, and can be strengthened with compound movements, like the squat and deadlift. But incorporating hamstring exercises into your resistance training can amplify your results and provide more targeted benefits related to lower-body strength and power, injury prevention, and aesthetics (read: a shapelier butt). Below are six different hamstring curl variations you can do without a machine, ranging from beginner-friendly banded leg curls to a more advanced bodyweight hamstring curl. To perform each isolation exercise correctly, you’ll need access to an exercise mat, resistance band, dumbbell, stability ball, bench or chair, and gliders.
