Nine Best Leg Day Workout and Hamstring Exercises for Strong Legs, According to a Personal Trainer

Do you ever awaken with tight, stiff legs and marvel why? Or maybe, for the duration of yoga class, you locate it hard to touch your heels to the floor in a downward dealing with the dog. Either manner, you can possibly advantage from practicing some fundamental hamstring sporting events to enhance leg strength, flexibility, and mobility.

What is the hamstring muscle mass?

The hamstring muscle mass is placed alongside the lower back of the thigh and hooks up with the hip and simply beneath the knee, explains Denise Chakoian, C.P.T., non-public trainer, most cancers exercising specialist, and owner-founding father of CORE Fitness in Providence, Rhode Island. “These muscle masses make it viable to increase the leg lower back and to bend the knee,” she adds.

Hamstring exercising benefits

Your hamstrings play a vital position in your everyday lifestyles and workouts—they stabilize the knee joint and assist hold hip and torso positioning, Chakoian says. “Most often, the quadriceps get overdeveloped from weakening hamstrings. This ought to cause a danger of harm to the knee joint, in addition to the hamstrings themselves,” she adds.

To save you one's injury, supply leg day a few hamstring love through including Chakoian’s beneath-endorsed sporting events for your rotation.

Hamstring sporting events

Chakoian says those sporting events are great achieved over 15 to twenty reps for 3 units of every. “You can do it circuit fashion or do 3 units and flow directly to the next,” she says.

Hamstring curl

Chakoian says this exercise is “the unmarried maximum vital manner to goal the hamstring.” In a conventional gym, it’s one you could carry out the usage of a hamstring curl system (in that you lay face-down and curl your legs up and lower back), however, she says the device can reason useless strain on the muscle because of constrained motion withinside the relaxation of the frame. So, Chakoian recommends attempting a curl with the usage of a forty-five to 65-centimeter exercise ball instead.

“Lie down to your lower back and region your heels up at the ball in which your legs are in complete extension. Lift your hips in a bridge role, pull your legs in towards your chest at a ninety-diploma angle, after which increase their lower back out,” she says. Make certain to head gradually so the ball doesn’t flow or slip, and don't forget to have interaction and stabilize your center.

Deadlift

A deadlift is achieved both with a dumbbell in every hand or with an extended bar this is weighted, explains Chakoian. Holding your weight of the choice, with toes hip distance apart, hinge out of your hips till you sense a stretch withinside the lower back of your legs. “The weights or weighted bar could pass in the direction of your ankles, your lower back is flat, after which the usage of your hips, pressure lower back as much as a complete extension,” Chakoian adds.

Single leg deadlift

An unmarried-leg deadlift is barely greater hard because it calls for proper stability and center control. Chakoian says it may be achieved with no weights, or you could upload one or dumbbells, however, she recommends beginning with the best frame weight and running your manner up.

“Place your left foot in step with the chest line, then region the dumbbell for your proper hand; begin to increase your proper leg lower back and up, like a plane pose, and hinge out of your hip at the left facet and bend that left leg approximately forty-five degrees,” she explains. “Then, go back to a status role even as seeking to maintain your proper leg off the ground at the manner up.” Do identical moves on the other sides, converting the leg and the arm keeping the unmarried weight.

Bungee stretch

Wrap a resistance band around a steady system or desk-bound item which can resist your frame weight, and locate an all-fours role on the floor with the band in the back of you. Place a foot into the band strap, preserving your non-transferring, stabilizing leg and hip in step with your chest. Then, curl the resistance band into your glute and increase it lower back out. “The key to that is retaining stabilization withinside the leg and knee at the floor, and additionally preserving resistance at the transferring leg,” says Chakoian.

Glute bridge

Lie down to your lower back together along with your toes on the ground, and knees bent. With hands at your sides, use the inspiration of your arms and toes to slowly elevate your hips and glutes off the ground, urgent your hips as much as have interacted with the hamstrings. Chakoian recommends keeping this role to reinforce the hamstrings.

Single leg bridge

Assume the identical role as you'll for an everyday glute bridge, with legs bent at ninety degrees. Place your arms on the ground through your facet and start to raise the hips to the ceiling, and increase one leg immediately up withinside the air, keeping it there, says Chakoian. If you've got tight hamstrings, you could maintain the lifted knee barely bent for much less pressure at the quadricep, she adds.

“Slowly decrease down the glute in the direction of the ground and pressure the hip lower back up, best focused on the hamstring that isn't always prolonged withinside the air,” she says. This one is a chunk greater hard and calls for stability and balance withinside the floor foot and leg.

Sumo squat

The sumo squat isn't like a conventional squat as it additionally acts as a hip opener, “focused on greater of the hamstrings and adductors,” says Chakoian. “Place your toes hip distance apart, then flip your hips and toes open at approximately forty-five degrees. Start to make your manner down in the direction of the ground sitting your hips down, and urgent your heels into the ground. Then pressure up the usage of your hamstrings, glutes, and center to a completely upright role.” If you need a chunk of greater heat, she recommends keeping the weight or kettlebells at chest level.

Kettlebell swing

Start with toes hip distance apart, and the usage of each arm, maintain a kettlebell this is hard however now no longer too heavy, advises Chakoian. Start to hinge on the hips, glutes, and hips pointing immediately lower back, legs bent no greater than forty-five degrees. Swing the kettlebell as much as chest height, then backpedal among your legs. “At the pinnacle end, your hamstrings will contract, and the backbone has to stabilize without urgent your hips to some distance forward,” Chakoian says. (For greater, see our insurance on the way to use a kettlebell).

“Paper plate” curls

Using paper plates or gliding disks, lay on a hardwood ground face up, and region your heels at the plates. Lift your hips into the bridge role, and slowly pull each plate or disc in close to your glutes, then increase out to an immediate leg role “as great you could,” says Chakoian. “To project this further, best do one leg at a time.”

Legs and Shoulders Resistance Band Workout for an Even More Effective Leg Day

Leg day isn't always leg day without weights, right? Not necessarily: With a hard and fast of resistance bands, you could take foundational frame-weight sporting events and cause them to greater hard as your health degree increases. And that is vital in case you need to maintain to get even stronger.

Peter Marino, CPT, licensed non-public trainer, and proprietor of Posh Fitness, an internet non-public schooling platform, created this leg resistance band exercise with a moderate twist in your ordinary lower-frame exercise — including shoulders into the mix.

"Shoulders are one of the weakest muscle corporations for maximum people," Marino says. "Working shoulders with legs minimizes overworking the delts due to the fact the leg ordinary makes use of little to no shoulder paintings." If you are doing our 4-Week Resistance Band Challenge, you are getting plenty of shoulder paintings from the alternative workouts, too!

While this exercise turned into designed as a part of the challenge, you could do that ordinarily even in case you're now no longer taking part withinside the month-lengthy program.

If you are doing the challenge, observe the weekly rep scheme below. If you are doing this exercise on your own, grow or lower the reps and units primarily based totally on your health degree. You have to have the ability to complete all of the reps with the correct form, however, the ultimate has to sense hard.

Ideally, there might be anxiety withinside the band earlier than you begin any exercising. The exercising has to then get gradually more difficult as you pass thru the variety of movements till the center of the exercising whilst the band — or you — feels near the limit (however now no longer ‌at‌ the limit).

Try This Resistance Band Legs and Shoulders Workout

For this exercise, you will want an extended loop band or one with handles. You'll additionally want a mini loop for 2 of those sporting events, however, you could additionally pass without.

Top Trainer Shared His 'Most Effective' a hundred-Rep Leg Day Workout

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Jeff Cavaliere C.S.C.S. breaks down the "maximum powerful" exercise he makes use of on leg day to mild up the quads, glutes, and hamstrings, primarily based totally on the precept that it is the remaining handful of reps you carry out in every workout that has the maximum impact.

To start, choose the load in which you'll commonly attain failure withinside the eight-rep range, and use that to carry out an "ignition set." Then, after a quick relaxation of simply 15 seconds, the actual paintings begin.

"It's on this ignition set that you may be reminded of simply how clean the ones first few repetitions are... however they serve a completely critical factor on this exercise," Cavaliere explains. "They're going to set the degree for the ones extra stimulus-inducing, growth-inducing repetitions a good way to come after this factor... That ignition set simplest served to pre-fatigue the muscles, to high them for what occurs next."

Starting with the dumbbell Bulgarian cut-up squat, Cavaliere demonstrates the ignition set and 15-2d relaxation, then launches into 15 "powerful reps. (The ignition set of eight reps and 15 powerful reps ought to be finished on each leg.) The key right here is to carry out each rep to exact form, and you may relax/pause as normally as you want to attain that aim—so long as you hold every smash to simply 15 seconds.

Switching to the posterior chain with the barbell RDL, Cavaliere ups the ignition set to twelve reps, after which 20 powerful reps after the quick relaxation. Then he is going again to the anterior chain with alternating opposite lunges, the use of dumbbells so he can extra without difficulty set them down while he hits failure. Once once more, the ignition aim right here is eight, accompanied by 15 powerful reps. (When acting this workout, he advises stepping outwards in addition to backward which will help you keep your balance.)

The ignition set and powerful reps cross again as much as 12 and 20 for the cable pull-through, in which the cable and cord assist you to circulate your frame into the proper role in the course of the hinge.

To hit up the quads in a manner a few different physical activities manage, Cavaliere makes use of the Spanish squat, a banded workout, and provides a couple of dumbbells for additional difficulty, acting as an ignition set of eight and 15 extra reps. "This is a manner of doing resisted leg extension in a closed chain fashion," he says. "These are going to burn you up like by no means before."

Finally, he rounds out the exercise with seated calf raises, once more with dumbbells, acting eight ignition reps and 15 powerful reps.

Here's the exercise in full, coming to a complete of a hundred powerful reps:

Dumbbell Bulgarian cut-up squats, eight ignition reps, and 15 powerful reps on every leg
Barbell Romanian Deadlifts, 12 ignition reps, and 20 powerful reps
Dumbbell alternating opposite lunges, eight ignition reps, 15 reps on every leg
Cable pull-throughs, 12 ignition reps, 20 powerful reps
Dumbbell Spanish squats, eight ignition reps, 15 reps
Dumbbell seated calf raises, eight ignition reps, 15 reps