Seated vs Lying Hamstring curl
Which is better? Which gives the most bang for your buck? Hamstrings are the new biceps, so get cool and get them working.
If you read on, we will outline what the scientific studies have to say on the matter, hopefully help you on your way to bigger, meater, stronger hamstrings.
Whats below ⬇️
Hamstring anatomy and why a curl variation should be in your programme.
Broken down evidence based studies and what they found between the two.
Training programme considerations
Why Hamstring Curl? 🤔
You might be thinking, you do plenty of stiff leg deadlifts or good mornings, maybe some back extensions sprinkled in and your golden. Well a curl variation should also be added, here’s why.
The Hamstring is actually made up of 4 muscles:
Biceps Femoris: Short Head
Biceps Femoris: Long Head
Semitendinosus
Semimembranosus
The biceps femoris short head only performs the action of knee flexion, meaning it can only really be trained when doing a leg curl of any variation. Where as the other three muscles perform knee flexion and hip extension.
Using a curl variation allows you to train all 4 muscles that make up the hamstring with less total fatigue as it’s an isolation exercise whereas hip extension movements like the RDL, Stiff Leg Deadlift or Good mornings involve fatiguing the spinal erectors and glutes more due to it being a compound movement. There for extra work can be done on the hamstring allowing for less fatigue on the whole body.
This isn’t to say to remove hip hinge variations and only perform hamstring curls, as hip hinge movements create full posterior chain strength through the glutes, spinal erectors and hamstrings.
What the evidence says? 🤓
A study by (Maeo et al., 2020) [1] investigated the outcome on muscle hypertrophy and exercise caused muscle damage between the seated and prone (lying) hamstring curl variations, they took 20 adults on a twelve week programme and found that training the hamstring using the seated variation to be superior than prone at causing muscle growth, (+14% vs +9%)
This will be because the seated hamstring curl places the hamstring muscles that work on hip extension at greater muscle lengths (Stretched) than the prone, showing that training the muscle at long muscle lengths to be beneficial for hypertrophy.
Training Programme Considerations ✍️
Prioritisation - Hamstring Curls are much less fatiguing that there hip hing counter parts, and the fatigue (from my personal experience) can almost be local to the hamstring. Therefore if building your hamstrings are a priority for you, doing 3-5 sets of seated hamstring curls before the rest of your lower body work should not impact the rest of your lower session that much if at all except for specific hamstring movements. This allows you to be fresh on the hamstring curl and not totally fatigued as you would be after a set of squats and leg pressing.
Increase training frequency - In line with recovery, twice a week has been shown to be optimal for most muscle groups in the majority of people. This could be splitting a hip hinge and curl variation over two sessions or doing both in the same session twice a week. Recovery and goals dependant.
Increase Range of Motion - We know from the study above, that training muscles at long lengths to be advantageous to muscle hypertrophy. If the seated hamstring curl machine at your gym allows, try pulling your back off the pad, and leaning forward, keeping your spine in a good neutral position. This will increase the stretch on the hamstring, your starting position will be similar to that of the bottom of an RDL / Stiff leg deadlift.
