Your hamstring muscles are vital to nearly every leg movement, but they’re also particularly prone to injury. Understanding how your hamstrings work, along with the best hamstring exercises for strength and flexibility, can help you build power and mobility. The right hamstring exercises can also help minimize your risk of injuring these essential muscles. Whether you’re looking to supplement home workouts or need HIIT exercises for the gym, we’ve got you covered. 

Anatomy of the Hamstring: Understanding the Muscles

Your hamstrings are required for walking, standing, sitting, jumping, climbing stairs, and more. They’re responsible for helping your leg bend at the knee, extend at the hip, and rotate in the hip joint. There are three hamstring muscles:

• Biceps femoris: Positioned on the outer side of your thigh, the biceps femoris plays a key role in knee flexion, hip extension, and lower leg rotation when the knee is bent.
  

• Semimembranosus: The closest to the middle of your body, this muscle is also used to flex your knee joint, extend your thigh at the hip, and allow medial rotation for your lower leg and hip.
  
• Semitendinosus: Located between the biceps femoris and the semimembranosus, this muscle is used for the same functions as the semimembranosus.

Because these muscles are key to most leg movements, integrating hamstring exercises that improve stability and mobility is vital to your ability to move well. Hamstring injuries are the most common injury among athletes, accounting for 37% of all muscle traumas in professional sports, and they’re also frequently reinjured. The best hamstring workouts will integrate strength-building as well as stretching to support flexibility.

Top Hamstring Exercises for Strength and Power

The hamstrings facilitate movement at two joints—your hip and your knee—so your hamstrings are critical for the movement of your entire lower body. If you want to be able to walk, run, jump, lunge, sit, or stand, you need strong hamstrings. The following are the best hamstring workouts to build stronger muscles. 

Standard Deadlift

Deadlifts are one of the best hamstring exercises for muscle growth and power.

1) Start with your feet shoulder-width apart and arms outside the legs. Push your hips back and bend your knees to reach the bar.

2) Keep your core tight and spine tall, then pull the bar from the ground to stand tall, pulling your hips back to your standing position. 

3) Slowly lower the bar back to the ground by pushing your hips back and bending your knees.

4) Repeat six to eight times for three sets.

Romanian Deadlift

This version offers the same hip extension but eliminates the focus on the knees.

1) Start standing and holding the bar overhand with knees slightly bent.

2) Push your hips back slowly, with the weight gliding down the front of your legs. Lower with a flat back until you feel slight hamstring tension or until your torso is parallel to the ground.

3) Pull your hips forward to stand.

4) Repeat six to eight times for three sets.

Glute Bridge

Simple but effective, this exercise is on nearly every list for improving hamstring strength. 

1) Lie on your back with your knees bent to 90 degrees. Position feet shoulder-length apart and flat on the ground.

2) Drive your heels into the ground as though you’re pushing them in the direction of your toes, then extend your hips into the air, squeezing your glutes and lifting your upper legs and core with your hips. Your thighs and torso should be in line. 

3) Hold for two seconds, then slowly return your hips to the ground. 

4) Repeat 10 times for three sets.

Hamstring Exercises for Flexibility and Mobility

The best hamstring workouts help to stretch your hamstrings so they’re not as tight and prone to injury. This not only helps improve your hamstring functionality, but it can help prevent injury to other parts of your body, too (looking at you, lower back).

Single-Leg Deadlift

Similar to a Romanian deadlift, you’ll eliminate the knee action and integrate some posterior muscles, like the gluteus medius, to stabilize your femur. 

1) Stand feet together, holding the weight in front of your thighs with your arm extended and palms facing down.

2) Bend your left knee slightly, then bend forward at the hip, extending your right leg to hip height behind you while you lower the weight toward the floor.

3) Rise to the starting position and repeat on the other side. 

4) Repeat six to eight times for three sets.

Nordic Hamstring

This exercise is difficult, so take it easy at the beginning and work your way up to full reps and sets. You can also start with a slight bend in your hips to make it easier.

1) Begin by kneeling, with your feet anchored down by a coach, workout buddy, or heavy piece of gym equipment. 

2) Dig your toes into the ground and lower your body in a straight line (or maintain a slight bend in your hips) toward the ground for a five-second count. 

3) Once you’ve gone as far as you can while maintaining the straight line of your body, push yourself back up to the starting position with your hands (or bring your body back upright without your hands for an advanced version).

4) Repeat five to six times for three sets.

Hamstring Driver

This not only stretches your hamstrings but can help stretch your quads, too.

1) Kneel on your left knee with your right leg in a lunge position in front of you. 

2) Push your body and knee forward, keeping your back straight and knee in line with your toes. 

3) Then, push your hips back toward the heel of your kneeling leg, lowering your body in a straight line toward your front leg while stretching your front leg out as straight as you can. Flex your toes back toward your body.

4) Repeat this seesaw motion six times, with a focus on getting that front leg straighter each time.

5) Repeat on the other side.

The Role of Compound Movements in Hamstring Development

There are two types of exercises: compound and isolation. Compound exercises work more than one muscle group, making them more efficient and effective at building stability, mobility, and coordination. Exercising the surrounding muscles in your workouts for hamstrings ensures your hamstrings get the support they need to provide the power you want without injury. Even better, you’ll find that compound exercises work your hamstrings harder while you’re also activating other muscle groups.

Some examples of the best hamstring exercises that work out multiple muscle groups are:

• Deadlifts
• Squats
• Nordics
• Bridges

Isolation Exercises for Targeted Hamstring Growth

Isolation exercises isolate a single muscle group. The best hamstring workouts for isolating your hamstrings are leg curls. But your hamstrings actually work harder when you also activate your glutes. Isolation exercises are fine to include in your hamstring workout, but they’re not the top choice for improving your hamstring strength. Incorporate plenty of compound exercises, along with stretches, to get really good hamstring workouts that will enhance flexibility and mobility along with power. 

Avoiding Common Mistakes in Hamstring Workouts

If you go to the gym, you probably have a designated “leg day.” But have you ever done a targeted workout for your hamstrings? Most people don’t, and it’s not uncommon to forget to focus on these muscles. If you want to avoid a hamstring injury, incorporate hamstring workouts into your exercise schedule. But not just any hamstring workout—good hamstring workouts are varied and include plenty of compound exercises. Here are the most common mistakes people make when it comes to their hamstrings. 

Only Doing Isolation Exercises

Doing a bunch of leg curls just isn’t going to cut it. Not only is it likely that you’ll overwork your hamstrings, but you won’t be working any of the muscle groups that work in tandem with them. That means your hamstrings won’t be as supported as they need to be to work efficiently. Incorporate leg curls into a diverse workout that also includes plenty of compound exercises for better, safer results.

Only Exercising Both Hamstrings Simultaneously

Exercises that work both hamstrings at the same time are great, but you won’t notice if one side is doing more work than the other. Make sure you incorporate some exercises that work each hamstring individually. That way, you’ll notice if one side is weaker than the other, and you can adjust your workout accordingly. 

Going Too Hard Too Fast

Warm up before doing any exercise that works your hamstrings. From there, focus on quality of movement and multiple reps to build the strength you want. All the exercises mentioned above ask for multiple reps and sets because it’s important not to overtrain and stress your muscles to the point of injury. If you’re increasing the duration or intensity of an exercise, do it gradually.

Forgetting to Stretch

Remember how we said flexibility and mobility are essential to healthy hamstrings and injury reduction? That requires stretching well and stretching often. It’s generally best to stretch after you warm up so your muscles aren’t cold. Hold each stretch (static, no bouncing) for 15-30 seconds without forcing it.

Ignoring Your Body

If your hamstrings start to feel tight or cramp up, back off. Your body will tell you what’s too much, so listen. Don’t continue to exercise if you feel pain. Always incorporate recovery days between workouts for hamstrings so your muscles have time to rest and recover.