Hamstrings?
July 10th 2007 17:27
I recently was discussing his training with a high school football(American)player. When I asked him what kind of weight movements he was doing the footballer said that the "gym" at his school did not have any machines and that didn't matter, because the coach wanted players to do only basic,explosive movements like squats etc. Now, far be it from NMF to ever discourage anyone from doing squats,but the last time I attended a high school football game I was told that several of the injured players loitering the sidelines in street clothes were out because of hamstring problems. Yes, if you don't train and stretch them, hamstrings will not hold up, especially if they are underdeveloped compared to the quadriceps. Today a few comments on training hamstrings-the most neglected but easiest to train of the whole body.
There is really not much to know about training hamstrings. They are essentially worked by only two movements: the leg curl and the stiff-legged deadlift. That is it. What is more, these two exercises are pretty hard to screw up. My gym has four different machines for leg curls. If you find one uncomfortable, there are three others to serve you. Yet I almost never have to wait to use any of these machine because they are pretty lonely. Last week I saw a smart trainer doing his stiff legged deadlifts and as I watched I tried to remember when I'd seen anyone else working the movement.
What is wrong? Primarily hamstrings are forgotten,because leg training as a whole is the "great undone" of the gym. In addition, if someone decides to get serious about legs he/she is probably thinking of quads. Training quads is tough and, if you finish with energy to do anything else, you are probably not working hard enough. However, when does most hamstring training take place? After quad training! How much focus can they be getting? A few leg curls added to the burden of an already toasted pair of legs and that is usually the extent of it. That is why most people with big quads don't have that set of full hams to match.(Take a look at a top bodybuilder's hams. They are shaped like a half circle.)
If you want to have hamstrings that matter, the first thing to do is train them on their own day. That is, never train them on the same day as quads. One of them is going to lose out. Give hams a day and work them with all your focus. They can be well done on the same day as chest or even back. Your second imperative is to make sure that you are doing a sufficient number of sets. The hamstrings are a large muscle group and they should be trained with easily as many sets as you use to train any other large group. For intermediate trainers 10 total sets-5 curls and 5 stiff leggeds- is a good number for which to shoot. That is correct:treat your hamstrings like any other large muscle group and not like an afterthought for quad training. Your servant, as always.
There is really not much to know about training hamstrings. They are essentially worked by only two movements: the leg curl and the stiff-legged deadlift. That is it. What is more, these two exercises are pretty hard to screw up. My gym has four different machines for leg curls. If you find one uncomfortable, there are three others to serve you. Yet I almost never have to wait to use any of these machine because they are pretty lonely. Last week I saw a smart trainer doing his stiff legged deadlifts and as I watched I tried to remember when I'd seen anyone else working the movement.
What is wrong? Primarily hamstrings are forgotten,because leg training as a whole is the "great undone" of the gym. In addition, if someone decides to get serious about legs he/she is probably thinking of quads. Training quads is tough and, if you finish with energy to do anything else, you are probably not working hard enough. However, when does most hamstring training take place? After quad training! How much focus can they be getting? A few leg curls added to the burden of an already toasted pair of legs and that is usually the extent of it. That is why most people with big quads don't have that set of full hams to match.(Take a look at a top bodybuilder's hams. They are shaped like a half circle.)
If you want to have hamstrings that matter, the first thing to do is train them on their own day. That is, never train them on the same day as quads. One of them is going to lose out. Give hams a day and work them with all your focus. They can be well done on the same day as chest or even back. Your second imperative is to make sure that you are doing a sufficient number of sets. The hamstrings are a large muscle group and they should be trained with easily as many sets as you use to train any other large group. For intermediate trainers 10 total sets-5 curls and 5 stiff leggeds- is a good number for which to shoot. That is correct:treat your hamstrings like any other large muscle group and not like an afterthought for quad training. Your servant, as always.
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