Last Updated on January 13, 2023 by admin
Hamstring exercises aid everyday activities like walking, running, cycling, and swimming. The hamstrings are three muscles at the back of your legs extending from your thighs to your knees, and the range to which your knee can be flexed depends on how much you work these muscles. Hamstring muscle stretch can help you relieve tension within your lower back and hip. These workouts can tone the hamstrings and make your legs look good. For women, another plus is that we wear heels in formal events, and more often than not, our legs don’t feel comfortable in them. Still, with these workouts, any kind of heels are so much easier to deal with.
Hamstring muscle workouts should be a part of your normal workout as it saves you from leg spasms and possible muscle tears. Legs are stronger and more agile with these stretches. A hamstring muscle workout increases our range of motion in the hips and gives us more flexibility in our legs. Hamstring muscle injuries are extremely painful and take a long time to heal; therefore, athletes choose to incorporate different hamstring muscle workouts within their workout regime. A wide array of workouts are performed to tone our hamstring muscles; I will discuss the top three.
Most Popular Hamstring Exercises
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Sumo Squat
A sumo squat is much like a normal squat, except you try to go further down to stretch your inner thighs and hamstrings. Like all these workouts, they can be done with or without weights. If you choose to do these workouts at home without equipment, you can, but if you are a gym enthusiast, you may use weights and increase further benefits by adding strength training to your workouts. For best results, it’s important to engage your core in each of these exercises.
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Kettlebell Swing
This workout is used a lot in strength and muscle training regimes. It works on your endurance and is a full-body workout. This hamstring muscle workout works your hamstrings, core, glutes, and arms. You perform this workout by standing with feet a bit more than shoulder-width apart, and you will reach down to grab the kettlebell with your arms. Remember that this workout does not involve a squat, so be mindful about not bending your knees too much. Then comes the tricky part, where you will hold the kettlebell and extend your arms out entirely while ensuring you keep your abdominal muscles tight. Once you have extended and squeezed your glutes and hamstrings, you will shift your body’s weight towards your heels and swing the bell in front of your chest. Try and perform 15-20 repetitions of these.
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Single Leg Deadlift
There are numerous benefits to this simple exercise. Although this exercise mainly targets our butt but also helps us to strengthen all the muscles within our posterior chain. These strengthened muscles give us good posture and help us get rid of lower back pain. Another cool feature of this exercise is the balance we gain from using one leg at a time. For this exercise, we require weights. You start by standing straight with your arms by your side, then you will center your left leg as you bend forward and take your right leg back, trying to make an L with your legs. As you reach with your hand, you pick the weight up, come back into the original position, and repeat it on your other leg. If you might lose your balance, set your leg down, find your balance, and start again. Twenty repetitions of this would be good, to begin with.
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Basic Bridge
As interesting as the name is, it is interesting to perform this exercise. Basic Bridge targets your abs, glutes, and hamstrings; this beginner-level exercise needs no equipment, only a yoga mat. To perform, lay on the mat straight and stretch your body while keeping it in the same position. Once tightened, put your heels on the floor and lift your lower and upper body up to the shoulders to the angle where your knees are 90 degrees to the floor. Tighten your abdominal and buttock muscles as you go up, hold for an extended time of 15-30 seconds and slowly release to the original position. There are many variations of this exercise that can be attempted after successful execution of this. 2-3 sets of 6-8 reps are ideal to start with.
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