How to Use a Leg Curl Machine: Tips, Technique, Correct Form, Benefits and Common Mistakes

If a deadlift feels a little too hard for your liking, perhaps the lying leg curl is for you. The leg curl machine can be your new best friend. That's because the lying leg curl is not just a hamstring exercise, but it also hits the hip joints and glutes as well.

Lying or seated leg curls are especially great, as they target your hamstrings and quads simultaneously. These muscles are essential for fitness, as they make up much of our body mass.

You can combine this exercise with other moves to build muscles quicker. Here's all you need to know about it:

How to Do Leg Curls?

To do this exercise:

Lie face down on a leg-curl machine.
Drop your knees off the back edge of the bench, and place your calves under the ankle pads so that the undersides of the pads touch your calves just above your ankles.
Keeping your upper body still, curl your lower legs till the ankle pads almost touch your gluteus maximus (bum muscles).
At the top of the move, contract your hip for two seconds, and lower your legs till they're almost straight.

Tips and Techniques for Using Leg Curl Machine

Here are some tips and techniques you can implement while using this machine:

Place your head on the pad with your face down. Your neck muscles will become sore if you tilt it up or turn it to the side.
The entire exercise should be performed with a straight spine. Backbends only serve to emphasise your lower back and take the focus off your hamstrings.
Stay flat on the bench with your hips. By lifting them, you shift the strain from your hamstrings to your lower back.
Maintain a flat chest on the bench. If it starts to rise, you're either leaning too far forward or arching your back to assist in bringing your feet up toward your buttocks.

Benefits of Using Leg Curl Machine

The leg curl machine is a great way to build strength in your hamstrings, which can help you do more squats and deadlifts. By lifting heavier weights, you'll increase your lower body power, allowing you to go deeper into squats properly and lift a lot more weight.

The leg curl is a great exercise to do if you want to work your hamstrings and boost flexibility and mobility in your leg muscles. It's also a good way to support exercises, such as deeper squats and different types of lunges, which require flexible and mobile hamstrings.

The extra mobility can benefit you in doing your daily chores, protecting your muscles from strain.

Mastering the leg curls to sculpt your hamstrings and prevent injuries to hamstring and knee muscles goes a long way. As it’s a low-impact exercise, your joints won’t suffer as much as they do when you do lunges.

The low-impact nature of the exercise can help build strength and durability in the muscle tissue while improving its mobility.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Some common mistakes to avoid while doing this pose are:

1) Not getting enough stimulus

As hamstrings are one of the largest muscle groups in the body, they need a lot of work. Do enough exercises, sets, reps, and intervals to stimulate them properly. Next time you train legs, start with the hamstrings. Focus on them, and use all your energy stores to train them well.

2) Quad dominance

It's a common issue in many people. If the hamstrings are not activated properly, they can become weak and tight, resulting in an imbalance between the quads and the hamstring muscles.

3) Injury

Hamstring injuries are common in fitness and sport. A variety of factors contribute to hamstring injuries: muscular overload, quad dominance, failure to warm up enough before activity and weak glutes.

To prevent injuries, it's important to train your muscles enough and include the aforementioned injury prevention measures: hamstring stretches before and after exercise, staying hydrated during training, and doing exercises such as lumbar movements (lower back stretches), bridges (for hip flexibility) and Swiss-ball curls (for hamstring flexibility).

There are many ways of performing leg curls. (Image via Pinterest)

A correct leg curl is like any other exercise, as there are many forms of performing it.

Overall, though, you should focus on lowering the weight with correct form, maintaining proper body posture and using your hamstrings during each repetition. Remember, if you feel too much strain in any given area, such as the back, discontinue immediately.

Lying leg curls is a great way to target the biceps femoris and provide balance to the surrounding supporting muscles.

There are many misconceptions regarding the leg curl machine and its use. By applying the tips and advice mentioned in this article, you should be able to look beyond these myths. Enjoy safe, efficient and effective workouts to improve your hamstrings on a leg curl machine.