6 Powerful Hamstring Exercises for Women

Including a variety of hamstring exercises in your lower-body workout and quad exercises is a terrific method to ensure that you are exercising effectively and maintaining the balance of your program.

The muscles that run along the back of your thighs, known as hamstrings, are crucial for maintaining strength because they extend your hips and flex your knees, actions that enable you to perform tasks like standing up straight, bending forward, walking, and sprinting.

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Best Hamstring Exercises for Women

Working the hamstring improves speed and endurance while lifting the glutes and toning the back of the thighs.

Add these six hamstring exercises to your routine and master the deadlift if you want to have strong, well-defined hamstrings.

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1) Sumo Squat

Add sumo squats to your arsenal of hamstring exercises to target your inner thighs, often known as the adductor muscles and hamstrings.

Here is how to do it:

• Standing with feet that are just wider than hip width, turn your toes outward at roughly 45 degrees. The rotation of your hips will be outward.
• Put your arms shoulder-height out in front of you. Hold the dumbbells firmly on the shoulders or in a goblet posture in front of your chest if you're using weight.
• Take a few deep breaths, tighten your abdominal muscles, and push your hips back to lower yourself into a squat position.
• Exhale as you stop at the bottom, then push yourself back up to stand. Keep your heel and midfoot weight equally distributed.
• Perform 12 to 15 reps.

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2) Glute bridge

This basic hamstring exercise isolates and tones the glute and hamstring muscles. It is suitable for most levels of fitness because it is a starter workout.

Here is how to do it:

• Lay flat on your back with your feet approximately a foot away from your butt and your knees bent. Place your arms by your sides.
• Put pressure on the floor with your heels, engage your glutes, and lift your hips off the ground until your body is straight from your shoulders to your knees. Keep your attention on the hamstrings.
• Hold this posture for ten to twenty seconds.
• Reverse the motion by lowering to the starting position.

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3) Leg press on stability ball

Leg presses on an exercise ball target the lower body. They strengthen the core and increase stability. It is an excellent hamstring exercise.

Here is how to do it:

• Lie back on a huge exercise ball.
• Maintain a natural neck position and avoid gazing up or down. You will have your arms by your sides.
• Kneel down as if you were going to squat. Then, while concentrating on tightening the hamstrings, squeeze through the heels to return to the initial position.
• Perform ten to fifteen times.

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4) Banded hamstring curls

This hamstring exercise is wonderful for glutes, hamstring stimulation, and isolating the back of the legs.

Here is how to do it:

• Around a strong post or another stationary object, fasten a thin band.
• While lying on your stomach, wrap the band over your ankles.
• Tighten your glutes at the top of the curls as you raise your legs towards your butt. Repeat after a slow release.

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5) Kettlebell Swing

The hamstring muscles will benefit most from a perfectly executed kettlebell swing, because the hips are key to performing this exercise correctly.

Here is how to do it:

• Place both feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart on the floor while holding a kettlebell in front of your torso. Tilt forth from your hips and let the kettlebell swing slowly back between your legs while keeping your knees slightly bent.
• Swing the kettlebell forward and up to shoulder height by extending your legs and hips and using your glutes and hamstrings as a propulsion source.
• To drop the kettlebell and get reverse movement, squat with bent knees and a forward hip tilt. Aim to lift the kettlebell with your glutes and hamstrings, not your arms or shoulders, and continue for designated number of repetitions.

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6) Good Mornings

Good Mornings is a fantastic hamstring exercise. For a more advanced version, you can grab dumbbells.

Here is how to do it:

• With your elbows wide extended, hold your hands behind your head as you stand with your feet hip-width apart.
• When your chest is almost parallel to the floor, keep your knees slightly bent and tilt forward at the hips. While maintaining a neutral spine and tight abs, push your hips back.
• To raise yourself back to the initial position, press your hips forward with the help of your hamstrings and glutes.

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Hamstrings are in charge of stabilizing the hips and knees. You must include hamstring exercises to keep your muscles balanced. Injury, postural problems, and poor body mechanics can result from having quads that are excessively stronger than hamstrings.