Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 363: How to Build Great Legs by Developing Your Hamstrings

Episode Date: September 12, 2016

To have a truly nice looking butt and legs you need well developed hamstrings. In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin lay out how to build your hamstrings for maximum aesthetics and function. Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you with a new video on our new YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. Get MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint AND the Sexy Athlete Mod (The RGB Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Get your Kimera Koffee, Mind Pump's first official sponsor, at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts!

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, hop, mind, hop with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. All right, you're about to listen to us talk about how to maximize your hamstring development. Yes. You might want to take a gander, take a peek. Gander. And take a gander at mindpumpmedia.com. We have a butt builder bundle.

This is MAPS enabolic. That booty architect. And MAPS aesthetic combined. Plus there's a modification in there to teach you how to build your glutes. And by the way, your hamstrings are very closely connected to the glutes. Develop glutes. You'll have fantastically developed hamstrings as well agreed mind pump media dot com but builder combo everything on there To over 20% off shape that booty. Oh

On the road again Did I can't I just can't fucking with fucking I am right now to we're getting our spot you guys has that something yet Well, we haven't signed anything yet, but it's as good as good as done. It is done, bro. What's happening? We're gonna probably gonna sign you think we're gonna sign it today. Doug you think today Today or tomorrow, bro. We're gonna be official. We are we are we are we hot. You know what this means? MPA now now we've got MP. I think we can tell our audience MPA now now we've got MPA so I think we can tell our audience

Fuck yeah, they're ready for this. We're getting we're getting a a new spot It's gonna be the headquarters of mind pump media Right and it's fucking awesome This is how crazy shit works for us. Let me just give you let me give the listeners a little rundown of how mind pump does business Shit literally happens. Or it's weird. We try to force this. It presents itself once, you know, it's like, hey, look, you know, you've been working real hard in this direction. Yeah, I would like to. Yes. I would like to point. Well, that's what I mean. What's that? What is there's a quote for that that

opportunity? What is luck is when opportunity meets hard work? Yeah, I think that's it. Right, isn't that right? That's it. Because we've been looking hard for a new location so that we could have, because what we want, I've come to the ringer, let's just say. Yeah, because we want, this is what we want. Of course, we're always transparent, so we might as well tell them. We want a facility where mind pump media can do everything, where we can film our workout videos, where we could film our new programs,

where we could film our YouTube videos, where we could produce other fitness content, because believe me, we've got some stuff up our sleeves that. Where we could hold classes. We could hold classes in there. I can hold cool products that I can't wait to show you guys. Exactly, where we can record our episodes, and then on top products that I can't wait to show you guys. Exactly where we can record our episodes and then on top of it edit everything

and clean everything up and do it all in-house because right now we're split up between the recording studio, a gym which we can only, and I wanna thank ClubSport for letting us use their gym. We're probably gonna continue using it for the next month while we build the other place out. But the hard thing is we're limited, right? They only let us go record for like one or two-hour window

during the day, so we can't just do it whenever we want. And I'll be honest, like this studio, like so I'm in the first seat, like, Captains' chair over here. I'm talking about you guys always giving me your butt or balls. Yeah, like every time you walk by. That's actually something, that's actually something

I'm gonna miss. We're not gonna change that. I'm still going to make sure I'm going to walk across the big ass room. Make sure I get plenty of space. Dude, why are you scooting past my face? You guys just like intentionally. We have to sit. We have double the square footage now and you're still walking your crotch in front of my face. You know, I'm going to put it out there too. A couple things. You know, virtual high five to everybody. Spinole on time since we gave some love back to you guys. I want to appreciate the support. Those are that have been with us, especially since the beginning in Doug's living room. We started. We started. It's been a long time since we've given the fans.

Yeah, some love. Yeah, what the hell's wrong with us? I know. And I think that it became divas. I know. Not at all. I don't think we become divas. I think we become very focused. And you know, if you guys think that we pump content and you thought we really started ramping it up just recently, just wait until we have a spot where we are going to hook you up with so much free content. You're going to fucking hate us. It's going to be everywhere. You're going gonna learn everything all the time. It's gonna be crazy. As it is, I've had other podcasts call us and tell us like, how do you guys put out

that many shows every single week? You have no idea. Because we're fucking gangster. You have no idea what's about to happen. We're about to blow up all over your face. So the other thing that I wanted to mention is, we are going to be getting, so hopefully signing the lease today or tomorrow, we have about 3500 square feet that we're going to be

doing some construction. And so we're going to be doing some refloring and putting up some real basic walls. We already have, there's already like a, what they had as a kids club, we're going to convert it into a studio that we're just going to seal the wall up. It's a quiet room. Sound yeah, we're going sound proof it, really nice. So, you know, if we have any mind-pump listeners that are local in the Bay Area, so like that, that I'm gonna be looking for bids anyways, for someone we literally would love to come in

and just do everything. Literally lay the turf, lay the flooring, get the studio sound proof set up. Do you make cool, unique stuff? We can display, you know, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, so, you know, I'm already on it right now. So, I mean, it's not like it's something that we need, but there are listeners that are fans that...

They're in the industry, you know? Yeah, exactly. We're all about helping each other out. I'm not asking for free services from anybody, but, you know, if we can give our business to somebody that is already a fan, and that's way better. Also along those lines, we're going to be buying equipment.

If you're an equipment retailer or distributor, and you want us to carry your equipment, because it will just be displayed in our videos, which will be viewed by many, many people. We talk about the equipment, and we'll talk about it by name, contact us. Doug, I'll have them contact you, yeah. Doug at MindPumpMedia.com, email Doug, if you've got the hookup for equipment, or you know people in the area, in the Bay Area, this is in the San Jose area, who do that kind of work, that construction or whatever, we'd love to give our money to people who actually like MindPump to do this kind of work that, you know, construction or whatever. We'd love to give our money to people who actually like mind pump

to do this kind of work. Absolutely, absolutely. So that would be awesome. Super excited, man. I'm so pumped right now. It's so crazy how it worked out though. Crazy because there was another location that we were all jazzed about that we really liked.

However, You're a Kenny G jazzed on it. However, they asked for, I mean, fucking, they wanted my first born child. I know, right? They wanted the blood of a fucking goat from Indonesia. Dude, they want prepay this and that, and I wanna see this history and fucking,

give us a naked video of Adam and give us this. And at the end of the day, okay, listen, fucker. Like, what else do you want? Like, what can we, you know, I'm over it. I'll cut my left testicle. Yeah, I'm not, okay, listen, fucker. Like, what else do you want? Like, what can we, you know, I'm over it. I'll cut my left testicle. Yeah, I'm not a circus dog. That's as far as I can. You know what I'm saying?

I'm not jumping through hoops. I'm just really glad that, you know, one of us continued to, even though we found a spot that we were like, press the other ones on, looking for other locations. One of us, yeah. Continue to, continue to look that way because. Nothing like a self-pad on the back.

No, you're 100% right, and I will extend that even further. Adam's good at that. I will extend it even further though. Had these other people not given us so many, taking their sweet ass time, we would have ended up there, and we would have ended up spending more money

and having to do all this stuff stupid. Which would have been fine, because we were all in love with it. We would have made it work. We would have ended up spending more money and having to do something stupid. Which would have been fine because we were all in love. We would have made it work. We were all in love with that spot, regardless of how much money it was going to put us out and how it would have screwed us tax-wise. We were still excited about it location-wise, the setup of it. It was a beautiful place. I still say that.

But now we're just going to have to come back and buy it. Like here you go, bitch. Yeah, and this place, the place we're about to get into, couldn't be more, I'm more excited about this from many other reasons other than saving money. It just, I'm excited about the current ownership of it right now. What's the, what's the best part? And the best part, and this is where, and this is why,

you know, this is why Justin, God bless the irony. Justin and I believe in Jesus. We do. And this is where and this is why, you know, this is why just God blessed the irony. Justin and I believe in Jesus. And this is why and this is why because every once in a while he saved our souls and put us in a cross with him. Yes. We are literally, we are literally neighbors. We're not even neighbors. We're taking over half of their space, half of their physical crossfit gym. I love it. They kind of bit off more. They can chew size wise. Great people by the way. Very nice. Very nice. Very nice. Awesome people. And we were are literally going to be sharing a building with CrossFit. So that is very exciting to me. I could not be more thrilled. I could not pick a better material.

It makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Yeah, I mean, yeah. I think it's hilarious. Super pumped. On that note, we need to hurry up and sign the lease before I listen to our show. Right here, right. On that note, let's get back to,

I feel like we took a slight detour from what everybody was loving to hear is all the body parts. We've been breaking up different things. We even have left. As far as major muscle groups. To be Alice. Yeah, have left. Well, we were as far as major muscle groups. To be Alice. Yeah, I know. Yeah, we have a weird doing. We have a couple big ones left.

I think hamstrings. I've heard hamstrings get thrown out there a few times. Hamstrings is a big one. And I like, I like us talking about this one because it's actually, when you go into a gym, there isn't, there's not a lot of machines or tools or a lot of direction for people to help them with their hamstrings. And quite frankly, the whole posterior chain is so overlooked by so many people and I can't stress how important developing that whole backside is.

And you know, there's some really awesome movements for that that people neglect to do. So I think, you know, what's interesting. and really awesome movements for that that people neglect to do, so. I think, you know what's interesting? So when we first said, oh, let's do an episode on hamstrings, all of us were kind of like, man, it's kind of boring. Now that I think about it, there's probably more confusion and lack of information

on training hamstrings than almost anything else because if I were to tell a person the average gym goer, give me five quad exercises, they'd wrap off five, give me five chest exercises, give me five hamstring exercises, uh, the late curls, and then they're stuck. Yeah. They don't know what else does hamstrings, because the only thing they understand in the gym, and I know lots of people like this, that their hamstring routine consists of leg curls. In fact, I've seen many of people in the gym, including your stage presentation athletes, whose hamstring routine consists of various leg curls, one leg

of leg curls, two leg of leg curls, laying down leg curls, standing up leg curls, seated leg curls. And that's their hamstring. Slider leg curls. Yeah. If the two functions, the two main function of the hamstring, because there's a minor function, but the two main functions are to extend the hips and to flex the knee. Extending the hips is probably the more, I would say, extending the hips is probably is definitely going to give you more of a bang for your buck in terms of development than the flexing the knee part. So the leg curl is the knee flexing part, but it's the hip extension part that you really want to make the bulk of your hamstring workout. And that's what's going to give you the most strength, that's what's going to give you the most muscle development and the most functionality.

You can have much better functionality if you get really good at extending the hips, then if you just get good at curling the legs, and then there's a minor influence in the hamstrings, which is to internally rotate the femur when the knee is flexed, but nobody gives a shit about that. So let's talk about some of the best exercises that you could recommend to people for hamstring development. Actually, before we do that, why is it important to work the hamstrings? Yeah. Besides the fact that it's a muscle and you should work it. Well, I was just explaining it's the posterior train is just neglected. I mean, we do everything in front of us, right? The anterior gets focused on so much that it creates an imbalance.

And that's why you always hear about a hamstring getting blown when the baseball players running to first base or catching the... Very common. Yes, it's extremely common, even for athletes. Do you sell it in Accelerating? Accelerating, right? There's so many people train the quads, but don't spend as much time. And I can't wish I remember where I first read this,

but I believe we are supposed to be able to handle like 80% of what you can do with your quad. I think that's where you should have at least that otherwise we're so in balance that you're at risk for injury. Well, here's the thing, if you want to have healthy hips and knees, you should have very, very strong hip extending muscles, which are the glutes and hamstrings. If you want very, very healthy shoulders, you should have very, very strong scapular

retractors and depressors and basically your back. So a lot of us do lots of presses and not a lot of good rowing, so we develop shoulder problems. A lot of us do lots of good quad not a lot of good rowing. So we develop shoulder problems. A lot of us do lots of good quad exercises, like leg presses and hack squats. And then they'll do squats. And barbell squats do use the hamstring to your good degree as well. But they don't really work on the hamstrings

to make sure that they're also very strong. And they cause some imbalances. And like you said, you see hamstring pulls quite calm. And especially in people who are accelerating very fast, out of a run because they have such powerful muscles, you know, extending the knee and not very powerful muscles, decelerating it. It's also extremely important. You got excited there. I did because because we do it.

King Kong is well, I always let you get we we always talk about health and fitness and we always talk about the sports and this and that, but I like to talk about the fucking look and the aesthetic thing. Yeah, through the point. Hamstrings, talk about a great what you have a girl or guy who comes in and they want to work on their ass and they're at the hamstring the way it tucks underneath. Like having a great hamstring development just makes the butt look amazing. I'll go as far as to say. Not to mention that you utilize a lot of that.

I'll go as far as to say that hamstrings probably, I mean, it's right up there with quads, if not more important in terms of aesthetics. If you're a woman and you've got well-developed quads and no hamstrings, it doesn't look very bad. If you have well-developed hamstrings, it's like Photoshop. And your quads are okay, you've got great looking legs.

I can take a girl who has a long origin insertion, which typically causes a girl to have a flatter looking butt, right? So that's a lot of what genetically, when someone has this great bubbly butt, it has to do with the origin insertion. When you have a very short origin insertion, you tend to have this bubbly or looking butt,

when you have a very long origin insertion, you typically have this long and flatter looking ass. You take somebody like that and you really develop their hamstrings and you don't even develop their butt. Let's say we don't even focus on the butt, but just by hamstring development and also you create a illusion that they have a bigger butt than what they have before because they have this nice muscular hamstring that goes out and then tucks in, which creates this look like they have a bigger butt than what they have before because they have this nice muscular hamstring that goes out and then tux-in, which creates this look like they have a bigger butt. So 100% when I help somebody out with building glutes that hamstring development is just as important.

Not to mention that a lot of the hamstring moves that we talk about as far as the best ones like dead lifting incorporates a lot of your glutes also. So definitely something to think about not neglecting the hamstring for aesthetic purposes also. Well, and just I was going to say like being more an athletically climbed way of training too, like just having that control and that balance because I mean mean everything that's like Sal mentioned, the explosive part of it, like quads and everything, you know, in the anterior portion, you know, if you're training, it gets so like, I mean, people can overdo it, like

and it just becomes this dominating force and you don't really have that balance where it's going to help your body stand or control. And it's not going to snap when you get into super explosive movements. So, you need to have that healthy balance. If you're not addressing the posterior chain, even though it made look a lot to athletes like everything is in front of me, everything's to the left and right of me. Why should I really focus on deadlifts and deep squats and these types of things that I need to work my posterior chain? Exactly. When you look at the hamstring to prevent injury and to develop them and to give you balance, the best exercises you could do for hamstrings are in the category

of deadlifts. Conventional deadlifts, stiff legate deadlifts, and Romanian deadlifts. But we've talked a lot about conventional deadlifts, so I want to move away from that for a second and focus on the more hamstring intensive stiff legate deadlifts and Romanian deadlifts. What the difference is between the two, because people confuse them quite a bit. People think stiff-legged deadlift is a Romanian deadlift and Romanian deadlift is a stiff-legged deadlift.

And they're actually not. They're actually two different movements. The Romanian deadlift was actually popularized or developed by a weight lifter. And I don't know his name. I should probably look it up to give him credit. He's probably Romanian. Yeah, he was. Yeah, he actually was Romanian. His name was. Skiet in. Yeah, it was it was it was it was an Olympic lifter. Oh, here we go. His name was

he was he was actually Romanian Olympic lifter. D'A, Nik's that? Yeah. So he was credited with making this popular. And the difference between a Romanian deadlift and a stiff leg a deadlift is this. When you're doing a stiff leg a deadlift, your legs stay straight and rigid. So the very little bend or no bend in the knee, you have a barbell in front of you and you bend over. And that includes spinal flexion.

I hate even saying bend over. You hip hinge out. Well, with a stiff leg of deadlift, it's less hip hinge like Romanian. It's more literally you bend over. And here's the thing. You know, this is the traditional definition of it. And I know you're shaking your head

because none of us teach this. Right. None of us teach it. Yeah, that would be bad mechanics. It is. But if you look at it, I don't even like saying it. If you look up like traditional stiff like a deadlift, and I want to be clear because it's

so muddy now, it's so confused because even I would do a stiff like a deadlift, and I always teach to maintain the arch in the back, but that's more of a Romanian. If you are an old school stiff like a deadlift, as you hold the bar and you literally bend over, keeping the knee straight, stretch the hamstrings and come up. And you go really low and the bar kind of moves away from your body a little bit. The Romanian deadlift, you have a bend in your knees that's fixed. So I bend my knees a little bit, but I fix them. So I'm not squatting anymore during the movement.

And I hip hinge and movement hips back and the bar stays very close to my body. And I maintain this strong arch in my back as I go down. The difference in terms of muscle activation is quite different. Do they both work hamstrings? Yes. But a stiff leg of deadlift, flexion and extension of the spine with weights. You're getting a lot of spinal erector activation. You're getting less glute activation because I'm not getting as much hip movement as I am with the Romanian

deadlift because I'm hinging at the hips. A lot of force goes all the way up to that position there and you go over back. Right. If I were to ever recommend a stiff like a deadlift in the sense that I just described, I would recommend it with very, very lightweight and just focusing on full range of motion and coming up nice and slow and coming down, nice and slow. And not really focusing on the resistance. What would you consider, like,

so you've seen like, it's a Jefferson curl before? Yeah, that's what he's like. That's the point right now. I'm kind of visualizing that because it, I would never teach that. Yeah, gymnasts, I've never had it before. Yeah, well, there's, only if you're in advance,

like as far as mobility is concerned, and you, you know, like some gymnast that have the ability to then go even further, they'll stand on top of a block, and then they'll go even further range of motion because they're trying to exceed that. Well, there's something to be said for it, because here's the reason why we've never teach that,

because it's super rare to run into someone that I would add resistance to them and have them do this movement. But if you can do this movement and you have good stability and good strength, then like everything we teach, training the way your body can move is probably fine. But if you really wanna hit your hamstrings,

it's not, I don't think it's, I don't think it's in the same category as remaining deadlift because you could use more weight, you get more hip hinge, you bend the knee a little bit, which takes a little pressure off the gas box. And a Romanian, you're saying Romanian like conventional, like a conventional deadlift. No, no, Romanian deadlift is not a conventional deadlift.

Is it squatted, right? Yeah, with the conventional deadlift, you're actually squatting deadlift. Oh, that's what you're explaining right now. No, Romanian is just the stiff leg of deadlift. No, it's a bend, yeah, it's a bend in the knee, but then it's, it's in the hips. the top picture is a stiff like a deadlift which is kind of like a Jefferson curl the bottom is Romanian and then a conventional

deadlift is the one where it's soft knees but you're fixed you're fixed see I would always call that a Romanian I know because because both of them never teach the Jefferson one the version of it at all yeah well that like I said it's advanced it's only for like, yeah, gymnasts and people leave athletes. That first movement, that stiff leg of deadlift is before the Romanian deadlift. That's what people did when they consider,

they call the stiff leg of deadlift. Like if you go back in the 50s and 60s, this is what bodybuilders would teach and they do it with very, very lightweight. And you can see the bar how much closer it is. Highlights more of actually, like the hamstrings versus like the conventional deadlift where we're squatted a bit more, right?

Yeah, you're gonna get... The crew means different. Yeah, and obviously you can use a lot more weight with the conventional deadlift. Yeah, absolutely. But the deadlift variations should be the crux of your hamstring work. In fact, I personally haven't done a leg curl

in any with any consistency, maybe 12 per day. If anything, you're good morning to help. That's a great one. I told you what happened to me when I had revisited after I hadn't done it for probably six, eight months. I hadn't got a lying leg curl in at least six, eight months. Might have been a year plus, so I can't remember, but I remember when I did get back on, I was fucking blown away by all the good mornings and the deadlifting and stuff that I had been doing, even good deep squats,

even a good deep squat, even a good, deep, heavy squat gets a lot of hamstring going on and all there. So that's a deep squatting, your deadlift variations, your good mornings. I mean, between those three, you could like probably and obviously there's more variation. So you could rotate, I mean, all they long single leg of deadlifts. Single leg ones are great. We actually posted a video, I believe it's up on the

on our mind pump TV. Yeah, it's up. We just went up to the day. Single leg deadlifts are great, especially if you're dealing with low back issues because you can use so much less resistance and it's less strain on your low back than if you had both feet on the ground where you could use more weight because you can progress a single leg deadlift with weight too. I mean you can hold a weight and do it and let me tell you something. It's definitely an ass kicker. Yes definitely. I would say and then good mornings let's get into good mornings. Good mornings and Romanian deadlifts are extremely similar in terms of the position of the hips and the soft knee and that flex just enough so you could stretch it back. I would say the good morning, you got to be more careful with your form, but with a good

morning, I can get just a gnarly stretch in my hamstrings. I don't have that feeling of it feels like the most for me. You just feel like you're really stretching it out. Yes. As far as leg curls are concerned, leg curls I would relegate to volume boosters or frequency boosters, you know, like on a focus session on mass black or trigger session. Doug, write this down in the soil. I'm just, something that just popped in my head.

It's a move that I love to do in replace of a line leg curl. I'll use a stability ball. Oh, yeah, leg curls on that. Yeah, because here, and anytime we've talked about this before, so I've recently discussed some moves that I like that we do for the upper body, like the rear delt moves and things that promote good posture

And and are working those under active muscles Now they we have the same condition lower cross syndrome with a lot of people that have the sleepy butt syndrome or have a hard time firing the hips So what that ass up? This is a great if you're gonna do leg curls, right? Like if you lay on them if you sit on you sit on a machine or lay down on a machine, you're not helping that issue at all. In fact, you're crutching it by sitting in a machine. So I would rather do a move that's going to promote you firing

the glutes and getting and working on a deviation while also increasing what you were heading with the volume of hamstring work. Because really lying leg curls, seated leg curls, any sort of curls on a machine is, I don't want to say it's worthless, but it's a very, very small piece and should be mainly introduced into your routine to increase volume on top of your other big gross movements that are getting the pain from up. So, And then if I'm gonna do that, if I'm increasing stuff like that,

I may as well work on something that's going to benefit my clients overall posture and their neurological imbalance that they have by doing something like that. So a line leg curl with a Bosu ball, or excuse me, a stability ball is a money maker. Here's a little tip. If you're one of those people, and a lot of you listening

are these people who need to prioritize hamstring development or really want to work on hamstring development, here's a little tip. Let's say today's leg day, or if you're training properly, you're working the full body, and you're probably going to end up hitting legs first anyway. Start your leg workout with leg curls. Let me explain.

You do your leg curls first, then you move to your meat and potatoes squat, lunge exercise, then you finish with your Romanian deadlift. So what you've done is pre-fatigued or pre-exhausted, I should say the hamstrings, then you move into your squats and you're really gonna feel them work,

and then you finish off with your Romanian deadifts. Here's why I don't recommend typically to start your workout with the remaining deadlifts before going to a squat because some people would say, well, why don't I just hit do the more effective exercise that also works. I'm going to fatigue your low back, your low back, which is so important for keeping that bar. You're setting yourself up for injuries. It's not a good idea to do these heavy posterior chain movements and then boom, go to a heavy barbell squat. But leg curls work great. In fact, I would do that.

I've done that for years. You're going to prime and stimulate them than anything else. I've done that for years with clients who want to develop their hamstrings and will do the stability ball leg curls. I mean, the gym I own didn't even have a leg curl machine. So that's exactly what I would do. I would use the stability ball. We'd do stability ball leg curls. I mean, the gym I owned didn't even have a leg curl machine. So that's exactly what I would do. I would use the stability ball.

We'd use stability ball leg curls. Then we would go do our squat variation. Then I would end with Romanian deadlifts. And like clockwork within months, every single time they would notice, we would see more pronounced hamstring development. And they would feel the hamstring firing better when they're doing their exercise.

And here's the thing too, it's one of those muscles were so poorly connected to that most people who've worked out for longer than six months have had a pump and their biceps or a pump and their pecs. Very few people have ever felt a pump in their hamstrings. I mean, think of that. If you're listening right now,

and you've been working out for a long time, I bet you could think of all the times you work out and you get a pump in almost every single muscle, except for your hamstrings. Now, what does that tell you? You know, what does that tell you? That's... We're not connected, they're real.

We're not connected. You're not really working the hamstrings really, really well. And so you probably have somewhat of an imbalance and so I I would say try what I just said try doing the leg curls first and Then moving on to your bigger movements in fact you could take it a step further if you really want to feel A pump in the hamstrings superset that shit Super said it and I'll tell you what,

superset it with front squats. That is a great combo. Hamstring to front squat, you get a nice little, you know, back of the leg, front of the leg work. It's actually what I did on Monday, and I got a nice little hamstring pump. You know, it was a little bit of a problem. I was talking about posture, really, how, you know,

if you're not working the hamstrings properly or not getting them to full range of motion and connectivity there, you know, if not working the hamstrings properly or not getting them to full range of motion and connectivity there, you know, what that sort of does is it affects in your hips and it affects your positioning and your body. And you know, what you can do as far as like how to correct that and how to strengthen, you know, and get the hamstrings more involved. Well, most, most low back issues, I would say arguably, most back issues come our result of weak and tight

or weak or tight hamstrings and bad glute recruitment. You fix those things right there and a good chunk of people with low back pain would not have low back. This is why the move that I was explaining is so important because what you just said, and by week it's underactive. Yes, and that move really forces you to fire all that. Now, what are your thoughts to on playing with the position of your feet?

Because the hamstring isn't just like one little skinny muscle nearby. There's, it's basically broken up in three regions of the back of your leg, and the way we position our feet can really target different parts. Yes, different parts, any. It can, and it's not the position of the feet. That's doing it.

It's the hip, I mean, it's here. It's all with... Your femur is technically what's actually changed, but people relate that to your feet. Exactly, but so here's another tip. I going to give you to help you feel different parts of your hamstring. So, the knee only flexes and extends, right? It doesn't rotate, it doesn't move in different directions, it just extends out and it flexes.

So, changing just the position of my foot and flexing and extending my knee, isn't going to really change the recruitment of my hamstrings. What will change, however, is my intent. Am I squeezing my knees together as I'm doing a late curl? Am I pulling my legs apart as I'm doing a late curl? So what I like to do with people, when they're doing a late curl

or they're doing a Romanian deadlift, is I'll have them squeeze a small something between their knees. So either like a small yoga block or a little soft medicine ball. Yeah, so if you're at the gym grab a bunch of towels, put them between your knees, squeeze your knees together while doing a leg curl and notice the difference in how you feel. And that's because again, hamstrings are involved in a little bit of internal rotation

there with the knees bent, especially when you squeeze. I do this on the physio ball. So I'll have... Glad you brought that one up because I'm going to bring up the external because I think that's okay. So the most, probably one of the weakest muscles in our lower half is our gluteus medius. And then so sumo deadlifts are going to target the opposite side is the opposite part of your hamstring.

So I love a sumo deadlift for this really wide opened up stance. So you open the hips up. Now not only do you get another part of your hamstrings engaged now that most people are not familiar with feeling. So if you've never done sumo deadlifts, just doing sumo deadlifts, I guarantee your hamstrings will feel sore different than you've ever felt before. And then the other part of that is it's not and the sumo also engages that gluteus medius, which is very overlooked and very hard to target any other way. So that's a big money maker for me also. And there's also the intent, like don't forget the intent. If you're in the sumo deadlift, you are, and you're doing it slow and

light and you're really trying to get the hamstrings and you're trying to get the adductors, you want to press the feet and knees out throughout the movement. Because sometimes you'll feel your knees try to come in a little bit. And even if you don't notice, even if there's no movement, even if the knees stay the same, simply, you keep intending with your rep, the pushing out of my feet, and turning them out and pushing my knees out

as I'm going down and coming up, not really moving them, but you're causing tension in that direction, you will feel different parts of the hamstrings. Now, what do you think you brought up doing leg curls, but what about squeezing the ball or whatever while you do a deadlift? What about doing that instead of,

I mean, I would love to, I've actually never played around with that, but maybe putting a basketball or a medicine ball. I thought the same like as we were talking about it with a good morning as well, but that might be interesting. Yes, you'll feel it different. And first and foremost, the reason why you would do that, the main reason why you would

put a ball between your legs and squeeze it or put a band around your legs and push out against it while you're doing these movements, is to create a recruitment pattern, is to correct a bad recruitment pattern. That's number one. So if I'm deadlifting and I'm doing a conventional style deadlift and my knees Want to go out. Teapix. Yeah, they want to go out while I'm coming up Which is I guess it's kind of rare, but let's say that's happening Yeah, then I'll put something between my legs to create a better recruitment pattern

So my knees stay straight if the opposite's having in and my knees are caving in just way more common Then I'll put something around my knees to push out I've actually seen trainers use the opposite like. Like here, put this between your knees, it'll keep them from giving in. And that's part of that. That's like even the word opposite. So the end of squeezing in. Even harder instead of, yeah.

Yes, this is part of the gluteus media's responsibility, too, is to help keep that open, which is why it's so weak, why most people collapse in. So that's why the sumo to me is, well, and it's a bigger, better move that is probably overlooked. That's going to help people out. Yep.

Oh, I was just going to say, like, it's interesting to me, too, to think like, I've seen people warm up and use these band distractions a lot, too. So it gets me to think about that, too, as people are sort of getting prepped and priming and getting ready for like a specific lesson. I've gotten to talk discussions with some of my friends who power lift and stuff

and they swear by doing these processes, but really like you're saying, like it's trying to promote a better recruitment pattern in that process, but now I have these external factors that are dictating that. So that's part of their ritual and routine is they're trying to reinforce this better recruitment pattern.

And here's something else that I haven't tried yet, but I've read about, I don't know if you guys have heard about this, but you should be able to single deadlift, single leg deadlift, a lot of weight. So let's say you can deadlift with a barbell, 500 pounds, you should get over 100 pounds in one hand or both hands and do a single leg. You should get pretty close to not going to get to half because there's balance involved, but you should be strong enough to be able to do with one leg.

And so there's a lot to be learned and a lot of progress you can make from doing things on one leg in particular for hip extension movement. I'm going to do that today actually. It's been a long time since I've done some single-leg barbell deadlifts. Dude, pal. In conventional styles. You're starting to see some power lifters do this as part of the routine and they're deadlifts. It only makes sense from the various more.

Very smart. Especially a move like that that, you know, when you start to get really heavy weight, we've talked about, and I have this issue right on my right side, it starts to, all your little patterns, right, or your little disconnects that you have really get exaggerated when you start to lift heavy weight. So I've had to completely eliminate the deadlift for a couple of months to kind of reset, get back to my body moving correctly. And I haven't reintroduced a heavy deadlifting, but what a smart way for me to start to reintroduce a bag

is to start single leg first, that it, because I'm gonna, once again, get a challenge, the connectivity and balance, coordination, stabilization. I bet you, before progressing to a regular conventional. And I bet you, I haven't done it yet. I haven't done it with myself yet. It's funny, it's interesting.

We've said this many times how we train other people better than ourselves. Yeah, I've seen clients get stronger in their Compound, you know basic movements like they're deadlift by not deadlift thing and by doing single-degdeb Like we'll do single legs for a while go back to deadlifts and boom. They're stronger. Yeah, and it's hilarious Because for whatever reason I don't apply it to myself Oh, yeah, but I bet you doing that I bet you you're gonna be Strong or as you were logically reconnecting you know like it like some some dormant contributors like they weren't like Contributing in the left like a lot of it was was getting taken on by the other side That's another one we should put down

Let's let's put down a single like barbell deadlift variation I think that's a great one to video and shoot. You don't really see that hardly at all. And I think that's a great movement. And think about it, you wanna think about on a functional level. If you're, you know, let's say you're competing with your friend and you guys are like,

round the same strength in your deadlift. You can both pull, let's say 400 pounds off the floor. But on one leg, you can do 50. And on one leg, he could do 100. He's a lot stronger than you functionally. I mean, in the real world, when you're running and jumping and bending over, if you're in a sport and you're a wrestler and you got to lift someone off and move things, I mean, judo, for example, lots of throws and judo are done on one leg. Lots of them are not, we're both feet on the ground. Yeah. Same thing with wrestling and takedowns and stuff like that. So it's

a, if you're an athlete, you don't want to neglect those single leg hip-hinging movements and progress them, like get good at them. Of course, you know, get real good with your form, but then start to progress them with weight and watch what happens. And it's funny. I recommend it to almost every one of my clients, especially female clients that want to develop their hamstrings. And I swear to God, when I have them do it regularly, especially as part of their trigger sessions, within months, literally within months,

I'll see them sitting down the bench, and you'll see the curve of the hamstrings start to show up, and you're like, there it fucking is. It's one of those muscles. And I also think it's a bad reputation as a muscle and bodybuilding that's hard to develop. But I just think we just, we didn't collect the shit out of it. Oh, that's what it is.

We know he's galactic because we can't see it, right? We don't look at it every single day. No one taught, no one goes, hey, when was the last time you heard someone say this? Like, you get great hamstrings, man. You know, nice hamstrings. Yeah, look at those lines. Yeah, nobody pays attention to that. And it's unfortunate because it is so important for in balance reasons.

And for aesthetic reasons too, I mean, I can't stress that enough. Man, I tell you what, I have never seen a girl with beautiful hamstrings that didn't have a great looking ass, even if they didn't have a big old, beautiful, bubbly ass. When they have beautiful hamstrings, it gives that to look like they have a great ass too, even if it's a flatter ass. Yeah, and you want to smack it. And one more thing you want to consider too, with properly done Romanian deadlifts or hip-hinging movements, is that only are they great strengths and muscle builders, but they're fantastic functional flexibility builders.

They are exceptional functional flexibility builders in the hamstrings because your goal with a Romanian deadlift with good form, I want to be clear, you have to have good form, is to work towards and be able to get more of a stretch. You maximize your tension in that. But you have weight, you're holding weight, and you're doing it in this real deep stretch position,

and you're trying to get better and better ranges of motion, like you should with any exercise, but this one just so happens to place lots of resistance on that stretch. So if you have tight hamstrings, getting really good at these will give you more flexible hamstrings, but at the same time, they're strong within that flexibility,

which is what you want, which is that overall stability. And by the way, adding resistance to a muscle while it's stretched is a soreness producer. So just keep that in stability. And by the way, adding resistance to a muscle while it's stretched is a soar, soreness producer. So just keep that in mind. If you do this exercise and you haven't done it before, you start doing them right and get a good stretch, like good mornings or whatever.

Yeah. You're going to feel your hamstrings for a little while. Yeah. Right. So with that, leave us a five star rating review on iTunes. If we like it, we pick it. You will win a free Mind Pump T-shirt. Also check out our YouTube channel Mind Pump TV and check us out on iTunes. If we like it, we pick it. You will win a free Mind Pump T-shirt. Also, check out our YouTube channel Mind Pump TV and check us out on Instagram or at Mind Pump Radio. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal, Adams at Mind Pump Adam and Justin

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