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Hamstrings

According to human anatomy, hamstrings are the tendons that occupy the posterior part of the femur (thigh). It primarily crosses and acts upon two specific joints - the hip and the knee and plays a crucial role in our various daily activities, such as walking, running, jumping etc.

During strength training or other exercise programs, hamstrings are a part of lower body exercises and are trained separately with the leg curl exercises. These are of two types: leg curl and snatch.

Leg Curl: Executed while lying down on a bench, face in a downward position, and by raising a weight with the feet towards the buttocks, leg curl is an isolation exercise. It is mainly used to increase the strength of hamstrings and dumbbells, cable machine or leg curl machine are the only used equipment in this particular lower body weight training exercise. Some variation can also be done like if you want to do leg curl in a standing position then one leg is used at a time.





Snatch: Performed particularly by using barbell, snatch is one of the current Olympic weightlifting events. In this exercise, lifter has to lift barbell from the platform to locked arms overhead in a smooth continuous movement. During training light weights are used while in contests, the weight is relatively heavy due to which an arc is formed directly overhead. If done with a jerk, this hamstring exercise can cause an injury.




Tags:  Hamstrings, Lower Body Weight Training Exercise, Weightlifting, Strength Training, Lower Body Exercises