The hamstring is one of the biggest muscles on your body and it is important to include hamstrings exercises in order to help its strength and injury prevention. If you are attempting to build the muscle you should do 3 sets of 6-8 reps per exercise or if you want to tone or help to prevent injury 3 sets of 12-16 reps would suffice (unless otherwise specified).
Warm up
You must first start with a warm up, two simple exercise would be fine, firstly straight legs, stand upright with your legs together, bend at the waist to touch your toes or as near as you can get, hold for 10 seconds then return to upright body position, repeat 3 times. Follow this by forward –backward leg swings. Start with your left arm parallel to a wall, place your hand there for balance, raise your right leg off the ground, swing in front of you and then behind you, start gently with smaller swings getting gradually higher. Repeat for the opposite leg; 3 sets of 10 swings per leg should be a good warm up.
The best three exercises!
For the first exercise you need a hamstring curl machine, these can be either lying on your front with legs behind you, or sat down with legs straight out in front. Once you have found the machine, lie/sit on it. From this position ensure your back remains straight, and curl your legs as far down as you can get them by bending your knees. Slowly return to your legs being straight out. This is one complete rep. You should feel a great deal of work in your hamstrings here; this in my opinion is the single best exercise around for hamstrings.
The second exercise follows a similar movement, but at the same time is completely different. This is the exercise ball hamstring curl. For this you will need to lie on your back and place your heels on an exercise ball. From this position roll the exercise ball towards you by bending your knees. Ensure your back remains straight on the ground. Return to original position with legs out stretched. For added difficulty you can do each leg individually while the other is held in the air. Even more difficulty could be added by instead of using an exercise ball, use a medicine ball; this gives more resistance and therefore greater work on the hamstring.
The final exercise is the leg press. There are like for the hamstring curl, a few variations of this machine, but they all involve pushing some weights away from your body using your legs. This generally mostly works your quads, however by putting your feet at the top of the plate instead of the bottom; it puts a greater stress on the hamstring. Keeping your feet shoulder width apart facing straight forward, back straight against the seat, push the weights away until your legs are out straight, however do not lock the knees, then return to bent leg position. For each rep ensure that your knees remain in line with your toes, ensure the whole leg remains in line with the feet, any error in this could cause knee ligament injuries.
Post workout
After you have worked the legs you will need to stretch again to prevent them becoming inflexible and risking injury from being too tense. A great stretch is sitting down, legs together, feet straight in front; lean forward trying to reach your toes, hold for 10 seconds then return, repeat 3 times. Another stretch that is very effective is achieved by raising one leg onto a bench, knee straight and toe facing upwards. From this bend your other leg and reach forward to touch the outstretched leg’s toes, once you feel a stretch hold for 10 seconds. Then change legs and repeat. Do 3 10 second stretched on each leg. After you have stretched at the end of the session you have completed your hamstring workout. Results should be seen within a minimal timeframe.