I'm confused about hamstrings...

[BG5150]

I always though of the hamstrings as the biceps of the legs. Aren't they called the femoris biceps?

To me, the biceps are a pulling set of muscles. I liken the leg muscles to the arm muscles: triceps and quads, push; biceps and leg biceps pull.

So how do squats and lunges work the hammies? It seems like all negative work. The only exercise that I see to work the hams in full rom would be leg curls.

I know that the big compounds work everything, but I just can't see it for the hammies....

Please edify me...

[verbatimreturned]

I want to try to explain this...it makes sense in my head, but I cant put it to paper, well internet

[Eric3237]

The hamstring is actually three muscles: the biceps femoris, semitendinosus, and semimenbranosus. They attach underneath the glutes to the pelvic bone and the knee, the tendons running through the back of the knee.


Biceps simply means "two heads". Hence "triceps" for three heads. So biceps femoris simply means the two headed muscles of the femora (I think it's plural, anyway) As far as it being a pulling muscle all muscles are pulling muscles. Muscles can't "push" after all. We may call pressing pushing but muscles only work by pulling on the bone.


So the two major actions of the hamstrings is hip flexion and knee flexion. So ANY hip dominant exercise works the hamstrings to some extent and anything involving knee flexion works it. But those exercise that involve BOTH work the hamstrings to the greatest extent. This makes squats, lunges, deadlifts, stiff legged deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, pullthroughs, glute-ham raises, goodmornings and similar things much better hamstring developers than just leg curls.

Originally Posted by Charles Poliquin

By their kinesiological nature, hamstrings have two major functions:

Originally Posted by Charles Poliquin

a: Knee flexion: Bending the knee. Usually trained by all the forms of Leg Curls devices offered on the market: seated, prone, kneeling and standing. MRI films will show in the case of the Supine Leg Curls, the biceps femoris, semitendinosus, sartorius and gracilis are recruited.

b: Hip extension: kicking the leg back like in the sprinting motion. Exercises that train that function are from the following exercise families: semi-stiff leg Deadlift (i.e. Romanian Deadlifts), Good Morning (i.e. Seated Good Mornings), Back Extensions and Reverse Hyperextensions MRI studies will show that both the Semi-Stiff Leg Deadlift and the Good Morning involve the adductor magnus, adductor brevis, biceps femoris and semi tendinosus.

The information given above implies that your hamstring workouts should involve exercises for both the hip extension function and the knee flexor function. Recent anatomical research points out what track and field coaches have known for years: hamstrings are connected as a chain to the glutes and back extensors (i.e. erector spinae). This through the sacro-tuberal and dorso-sacral ligaments.

[Eddie0206]

Stiff legged dead lifts are nice for the hams, so is weighted bent over horse

[BG5150]

Originally Posted by Eddie0206

so is weighted bent over horse

huh?