Hamstring exercise selection

[Kenneth Watts]

Joe,

Meant to ask this a while ago but honestly forgot. I structure my leg days similar to the ones you’ve posted, since my physique is quad dominant I always start with hamstrings and it’s payed off big dividends for my lower body balance. We do not have a seated leg curl at my gym, so I’ve primarily been using the lying leg curl as my main movement to train hamstrings with minimal tax on the hips and lower back. I know you’ve mentioned the lying leg curl is great for the shortened range, but leaves a bit to be desired on the mid and lengthened range. The other options I have available are the Rogue GHR (i can do sets of about 8 without cheating) or the RDL is also an option there as well. I tend to train the RDL/hinge pattern more on back/pull days as either mid shin rack deadlifts or RDLS, I find that its a pretty big energy drain to try to hack squat and RDL in the same session. I definitely can do it, but usually after that I have no energy left to do anything else. In your opinion what would my best option be? The lying leg curl we have is an atlantis piece, it doenst adjust at all which is kind of a bummer but its a good piece apart from that. I could also superset the lying leg curls with the banded seated leg curls (sitting on bench and tying the band to a rack) which I’ve seen you post in your home gym workouts. Let me know your opinion, as you say I know some of it is semantics but I just like to know I’m investing my effort into the right places. Thank you for your time as always!

[Joe]

Joe,

Meant to ask this a while ago but honestly forgot. I structure my leg days similar to the ones you’ve posted, since my physique is quad dominant I always start with hamstrings and it’s payed off big dividends for my lower body balance. We do not have a seated leg curl at my gym, so I’ve primarily been using the lying leg curl as my main movement to train hamstrings with minimal tax on the hips and lower back. I know you’ve mentioned the lying leg curl is great for the shortened range, but leaves a bit to be desired on the mid and lengthened range. The other options I have available are the Rogue GHR (i can do sets of about 8 without cheating) or the RDL is also an option there as well. I tend to train the RDL/hinge pattern more on back/pull days as either mid shin rack deadlifts or RDLS, I find that its a pretty big energy drain to try to hack squat and RDL in the same session. I definitely can do it, but usually after that I have no energy left to do anything else. In your opinion what would my best option be? The lying leg curl we have is an atlantis piece, it doenst adjust at all which is kind of a bummer but its a good piece apart from that. I could also superset the lying leg curls with the banded seated leg curls (sitting on bench and tying the band to a rack) which I’ve seen you post in your home gym workouts. Let me know your opinion, as you say I know some of it is semantics but I just like to know I’m investing my effort into the right places. Thank you for your as always!

[Kenneth Watts]

Hey Joe,

No worries at all, I’m honestly impressed with how much you’re able to get done while balancing time with your family as well. Sounds good, I’ll keep working away at the lying leg curl then. Definitely lucky, we have a lot of nice Atlantis pieces at our gym. We don’t have the specific back extension machine you mentioned (I’ve done those before btw and they’re hard), but we do have the rogue glute ham raise. Do you think I could MacGyver that piece into making that exercise work on there?

Also, since we’re on the topic of legs….I had a question regarding hacks. Didn’t start incorporating them until about a year ago, gotten some really good development in my quads since then. I’ve gotten the reverse band setup down pretty close to perfect, I’ve progressed a lot regarding form and load. When you initiate the hack, do you think about “sitting your hips down” or do you focus on “knees driving slightly forward”? I’ve noticed that when I don’t let my knees travel forward it actually irritates one of my knees slightly, and reduces the amount of load I can do. Since I started shifting my weight from my heels to mid foot and letting my knees push forward more, I get better quad activation, less joint pain, and can do more load wise. Based on all that I would assume I made the right decisions form wise, but would love your feedback. Thanks for your help as always man!

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