3 Hacks For Bigger Hamstrings! | GOODBYE SKINNY LEGS! – ScottHermanFitness

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HAMSTRINGS are the BICEPS of the LEGS & you wouldn’t skip BICEPS would you?! #TinyLegs

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Today, I’m going to save you from the embarrassment of skinny legs. However, the problem usually isn’t with the quads, most people hit those every week. But when it comes to the HAMSTRINGS, I don’t see too many people in my gym attacking them all that often. If you want that nice thick, round look, you need to prioritise them, not to mention the fact that they also go hand-in-hand with increasing your squat and deadlift.

Hack #1: Don’t Ignore The Basic Function Of The Hamstrings
Unfortunately, most people only focus on isolation exercises for the hamstrings, and believe it or not this can lead to an injury because the hamstrings will start to learn to work as an isolated muscle group as opposed to with the glutes. So if your workout program only consists of performing isolation type movements for the hamstrings, you’re training them in a way they’re not supposed to be trained for maximum performance.

If this sounds like you, make sure when you train your hamstrings you start your workouts with exercises that involve hip extension, like deadlifts, hip thrusts, glute bridges or squats. This will help you avoid a future hamstring injury because these exercises train the glutes and hamstrings together, which is their intended function…not just knee flexion.

Hack #2: Focus On Overloading Your Hamstrings During The Stretch
Once you’ve incorporated some of the exercises from hack #1 into your routine, don’t just run to a prone leg curl or a seated leg curl as your next exercise. Yes, exercises like these can give you a good flex, but the stretch is non-existent and that is where you get the most muscle damage for regrowth. I’m not going to say that either of those are bad exercises, but you need to utilize the proper order of these movements to see the most gains. For instance, you get much more muscle damage for regrowth from exercises that require a deep stretch, such as a Romanian deadlift. This movement should be a staple in your hamstrings training, so let’s go over proper form.

Romanian Deadlift
There are a few things you have to keep in mind before you even start doing Romanian deadlifts. Number 1, unless you have really freaky flexibility, the weight should not touch the ground between your reps. It should hover an inch or two above the ground every single time. Basically you’re going to be bringing the bar down to about mid-shin level. Number 2, you’re not doing a traditional squat stance. You want to stand with your feet about shoulder width apart, and your toes facing forward so that your heels are ‘under’ your shoulders. The last thing you have to keep in mind for this movement is that there is NO spinal flexion during the movement. That’s where most people go wrong with the exercise, and is why many people have back pain and/or don’t feel their hamstrings working and stretching.

Proper form involves standing with your feet shoulder width apart while the barbell is on the ground in front of you. Once in place, you want to reach down and grab the barbell a little wider than shoulder width, so that your hands don’t grind down your thighs as you go up and down, and you’ll then deadlift the bar up. Once you’re in position gripping the barbell, you’re going to sit back while keeping your chest up.

The bar should drag down your thighs, and then when the bar gets to about knee height, you’re then going to try to sit back even more while keeping that slight arch in your back. By the time you get to about mid-shin level, you should feel a DEEP stretch in your hamstrings (at this point the bar should still be about 3 inches off the ground). You’ll then return to the top of the movement and repeat. Keep in mind you want to control your negatives and go nice and slow – this is not a fast movement. It’s a slow movement so you can feel the hamstrings stretching, and if you do it too fast, you will not feel the hamstrings getting that nice deep stretch.

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