Why workout hamstrings

She previously covered developments in theater for the "Dramatists Guild Quarterly. The Advantages of Strong Hamstrings. Video of the Day. Key Functions. Posture and Alignment. Your hamstrings also keep your knee and surrounding connective tissue in alignment. Start with a PCV pipe, then a bar, and gradually add weight as you progress. Clients who have trained with me know this exercise well insert evil laughter! This exercise is a staple in my programing. I love this exercise because it's effective and can be modified to be challenging for all fitness levels.

Valslide pads in general are a great fitness investment to make. They are portable, lightweight, and extremely versatile. However, if you don't have valslides, you can use substitute by using a towel on a smooth surface. This exercise is one of my favorites for developing eccentric hamstring strength.

This is one where you really want to emphasize the lowering or "negative" portion of the rep. Shoot for a 3 second eccentric lowering, and a 1 second concentric. So there you have it! I would recommend starting these exercises immediately. Keep your back straight and core tight while reaching arms toward the top of right foot. Perform 12 to 15 reps, then repeat on the other side. Switch up your deadlift with these 9 variations that will help you tone your butt:.

How to: Lie on your back with knees bent, heels on gliders or a treadmill in manual mode, arms extended at sides. Dig your heels into the gliders or treadmill and pull heels toward butt.

Hold at the top, then slowly return to start. How to: Start on your hands and knees, with your hands shoulder-width apart and knees hip-width apart. Extend one leg behind you and tuck an exercise ball between your calf and hamstring, bending your knee to 90 degrees.

Lift your leg to slightly above hip height, then lower back to hip height. Tempo: Rest: 60 seconds. Focus on maintaining hip extension. Control the eccentric slowly. Then contract hard all the way through the concentric and squeeze your glutes at the top. Tempo: 30X0. Rest: 90 seconds. For max hamstring stimulation I recommend a high, outside of shoulder foot placement here. Focus on 3 seconds descents, a quick pause, then explode into a strong contraction.

Working in sets of 15, add weight to each set until you hit a tough At that point cut your load in half and perform 2 sets of 30 reps. Rest: second. The icing on the cake. Pyramid up in weight each set, with your final set hitting muscular failure. Rest: 75 seconds. Execute these nice and light. Focus on stretching out your hamstrings. As you move through the session above, my challenge to you is three-fold:.

Ignore your load the first few times you go through this. Focus on maintaining hip extension where relevant and creating intense contractions. Doing so will move you closer to a developing an incredible mind-muscle connection with your hamstrings. As that develops, the speed at which your hammies grow stronger and larger will multiply, leaving you with hamstrings that are the envy of other lifters. Focus on the execution of each rep, not the set as a whole. Put another way, treat every single rep as its own set.

This will help you to maximize and squeeze every ounce of stimulation from each rep.