So, we obviously can’t just write a quads article without a hamstrings article, right? Nobody wants juicy, well-defined quads only for someone’s eyes to track a little further behind … and land on sad, shapeless hamstrings 🥺

Keeping the same spirit of training like a true-blue minimalist in the gym, here are the ONLY 2 hamstring exercises you need for bigger, stronger legs.

What do your hamstring muscles do?

Yes, as difficult as it may be to believe, you only need 2 exercises to optimally target the hamstrings — the rest (i.e., the actual growth of your hamstrings) depends on your training volume, intensity, and nutrition.

Why? Because your hamstring muscles only play 2 functions:

How to target the hamstrings

Translation: to effectively target your hamstrings, you simply need to pick 1 hip extension exercise and 1 knee flexion exercise.

But which exercise specifically within those categories?

Well, it’ll have to meet the following “gold-tier” criteria:

• Relatively safe exercise for most people
• Easy to set up
• Easy to progressive overload
• The equipment it calls for is commonly available in most gyms

#1: Hip extension

A “gold-tier” hip extension exercise is the barbell Romanian deadlift.

(Note: dumbbells aren’t as great an option as the barbell version because they’re tricky to overload with once you get stronger — why struggle with a pair of unwieldy 50 kg dumbbells when you have the option of slapping on 2x 20 kg plates on each side of the barbell? 🤷)

Here are a few tips that’ll help you get the most out of this exercise:

This way, you won’t have to waste precious energy deadlifting the weight off the ground on every set to get to the starting position. Don’t tire yourself out before you’ve had a chance to hit your hamstrings meaningfully.

Research shows that getting a good stretch is crucial for hypertrophy.

But you should only let the barbell travel downward, closer to the ground, as far as your hips can move backward while your knees maintain a slight bend. Forcing more ROM otherwise shifts the load to your lower back and/or quads (when you bend and straighten your knees excessively).

Before you ask, yes.

Machines and free weights are similarly effective in promoting muscle growth (provided you’re training with similar volume, training intensity, etc. … you know how it goes).

Compared to barbell RDL, the Smith machine variant offers a key advantage: the bar has a strict, fixed up-and-down path.

You don’t have to worry about keeping it stable and preventing it from deviating from left to right or rotating.

This could help you focus better on hitting your hamstrings.

Have an angled Smith machine at your gym and are wondering how the f* are you supposed to do RDLs on them without wrecking your lower back? Here, watch this:

#2: Knee flexion

What’s a “gold-tier” knee flexion exercise? It’ll have to be the leg curl.

Depending on which machine your gym has, you could do either the seated hamstring curl or the lying hamstring curl.

Now, full disclaimer: IF you have the good fortune of being able to choose between the 2, go with the seated hamstring curl. That’s because, right from the start, the seated hamstring curl puts you in a hip flexion position — placing a greater stretch on your hamstrings.

And, as you’re probably already sick of hearing, more stretch = better growth (according to the current scientific literature).

(If you don’t know what we’re talking about, check out the following article to catch up!)

This isn’t just speculation, by the way.

 A 2021 study pitted the seated hamstring curls against the lying hamstring curls and found that “training-induced increases in muscle volume were greater in seated leg versus prone leg for the whole hamstrings (+14% vs +9%)”.

The 5% difference might not seem like much over 12 weeks but compound that over years of training, and it might make all the difference between OK-looking hamstrings and hamstrings worthy of a second (and third) look.

Are there any good hamstring bodyweight exercises?

TBH, there aren’t any great hip extension bodyweight exercises.

But there are a couple of great bodyweight knee flexion exercises you could use to target your hamstrings when you, for some reason, don’t have access to the gym and/or certain equipment:

Need a done-for-you training plan? Like, now?

Knowing which exercises you should do for your hamstrings isn’t the same as knowing how, exactly, you should fit them into a training plan that:

• Plays nice with the training volume dedicated to other muscle groups
• Makes sense for you (your training experience, availability, goals, etc.)

For those who’d like to stop worrying about the planning bit and concentrate on the doing bit (while having confidence that you’re on the right track), check out GymStreak.

This smart, AI-powered workout planner + nutrition tracker guides you through the perfect training plan to achieve your dream physique in record time.

Catch a sneak peek of the app below: