How to do dumbbell hamstring curls?

This is a hamstring exercise that isolates and strengthens these muscles by bending your knees or bringing your feet toward your hips against resistance. It primarily targets the hamstrings, the three long muscles at the back of the legs that connect the hips and knees.

Leg curls are generally much safer on the knees and are a common rehab exercise, as long as they’re done correctly.

How is it done?

1. We will place the dumbbell on the ground, standing on one end.
2. We will lie on the floor face down, with our legs straight and one foot on each side of the dumbbell.
3. We will squeeze the weight between the inside of the feet and bend the knees to lift it off the ground.
4. We will slowly bend the knees towards the hips, keeping the soles of the feet up and the feet flexed.
5. We will slowly lower the weight down and repeat.

When doing hamstring curls, think about pressing your hips into the ground and squeezing your glutes a bit. This will help isolate the hamstrings, preventing us from using the momentum of the hips to lift the weight. The ideal rep range depends on your fitness goals. To build strength, we’ll focus on heavier weights and fewer reps (6-10 reps). If the goal is muscular endurance, we will lower the weight and increase the repetitions (10 to 15 repetitions).

Because the exercise isolates only one joint (the knees), it is not recommended to use any weight that we cannot lift with good form for at least 6 repetitions.

Advantages of the Hamstring Curl

There are many benefits of this exercise, beyond strengthening the back of the legs.

relieve knee pain

A little known benefit of the leg curl is that it relaxes the knee joint. In fact, they can help relieve knee pain. Strengthening the hamstrings helps build stability in the knee and pelvis. This helps improve knee alignment (and reduces risk of injury) when doing other forms of exercise, such as walking or running.

Compared to other exercises, the hamstring curl doesn’t put the weight and stress directly on the joint. That is why it is recommended in many cases of rehabilitation.

Improves muscle imbalances

Most forms of exercise occur through the front of the body, such as jogging or doing the elliptical. On their own, these exercises can make the front of the body (the anterior chain) stronger than the back (posterior chain). These imbalances can cause poor posture and lower back pain.

By strengthening your hamstrings and glutes, this leg curl variation can help take some of the pressure and stress off your lower back. When the glutes and hamstrings are strong, the body can (and should) use these muscles, instead of the back, to perform daily activities or exercises in the gym.

Prevent and rehabilitate injuries

During hamstring injury rehabilitation, the goal is to increase to prevent future injury. And to do that, we need to increase the strength of this muscle when it’s fully stretched.

This is where hamstring curls come into play. As we lower the dumbbell to the ground and straighten our knees, we are challenging the hamstring in a fully extended state.

Improve daily movement

Every time we get up from a chair or lie down on the floor, we are using the hamstrings to help stabilize the hip and knee joints.

Adding some hamstring-focused exercises to your workout routine can help make these daily moves even easier. We can not only do it with dumbbells, later we will comment on other variants and alternatives of this exercise.

Strengthen for other exercises

The main benefit of the lying leg curl is increased hamstring strength. These muscles play an important role in power production in other exercises we may be doing in the gym.

Deadlifts and hip thrusts, for example, demand a lot of power and strength from the lower body, but especially from the hamstrings and glutes. By isolating the hamstrings, hamstring curls can help improve strength on these (usually) more difficult lifts.

Advice

To do the exercise correctly, it is recommended to follow some tricks. This will improve the efficiency of the movement and reduce the risk of injury.

tuck your hips

The most common mistake with this exercise is an overly arched lower back. When we do a lying hamstring curl, it’s very easy to let the abdomen relax, which causes the lower back to overextend. But this can add pressure and stress to the lower back, causing some painful side effects.

Although we are lying face down on the ground, we must keep the core contracted. In the lying position, tuck your tailbone in slightly and squeeze your glutes a bit to help contract your abs.

move slowly

If we swing our legs and hit our hips with the dumbbell, the technique may need adjustment. After all, we want to use muscles (not momentum) to lift and lower the weight. This is how we build strength.

We will keep the movements controlled both when we lower and when we raise the dumbbell. We can choose to increase the weight a little or try an eccentric progression, lowering the weight in a count of 3 seconds.

make it more complicated

The longer the muscles are under tension, the more force we will develop. When we slow down the lowering portion of this exercise, we build more hamstrings. That is why it is advisable to lower the dumbbell for three or four seconds. And then we’ll pick it up counting a second.

There is also another progression that consists of lifting the dumbbell, bending the knees to 90 degrees. We will lower the weight to the middle so that we feel that the hamstrings contract. We’ll pause here to count 3 to 4 seconds. Then, we’ll go all the way down to the bottom. On the way back, we will stop in the center again.

Machine Hamstring Curl Variations

Chances are you can find a lying or seated hamstring curl machine in the gym. The free weight and machine versions of the leg curl exercise are quite similar. Machines are typically set up with the torso at an angle, which can increase hamstring activation. However, the dumbbell version also builds core and inner thigh strength as the body works to stabilize the weight.

lying down

1. We’ll lie face down on the seat, lining up the padded lever just behind the ankles.
2. We will adjust the pin of the machine to a comfortable and challenging weight.
3. We’ll hold on to the handles and bend the lever up until the knees are bent at 90 degrees.

Sitting

1. We’ll sit on the leg curl machine, placing the padded lever behind our ankles, with our legs extended.
2. We will adjust the pin of the machine to a comfortable and challenging weight.
3. We’ll grab the handles at our sides and bend our knees to 90 degrees, pushing against the resistance of the lever.

Alternatives

If we do not have machines, do not go to the gym or prefer to train the hamstrings in another way, there are more similar exercises.

Standing Leg Curl with Mini Band

When we curl against a resistance band, the hamstrings have to work harder the closer the heels come to the body (a dumbbell keeps the resistance constant throughout the curl). The hamstrings are naturally stronger in this position, so using a band can help keep the muscles challenged throughout the range of motion.

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart and a resistance band around your ankles.
2. Keeping the right foot flat on the ground, we will bend the left knee at 90 degrees against the resistance of the band.
3. We’ll pause here for a moment.
4. We will lower the foot back to the ground.

If this variation feels too challenging, we can do the bodyweight-only standing leg curl, focusing on contracting the hamstring with each rep.

Nordic Hamstring Curl

Nordic curls don’t actually use any added weight, although they do have to support your own weight. This variation tests the hamstrings. We will only lower the body as low as we can with good technique, keeping the body in a straight line between the knees, hips and head.

1. We will kneel on the ground and anchor our ankles under a sturdy bar. We can also ask someone to hold our ankles.
2. We will sit on our knees, with our arms at our sides and our knees at hip height.
3. Keeping the body as straight as possible, we will tilt the torso forward, using the lower part of the sofa for stability.
4. We will go down as much as we can keeping the body straight.
5. We will use the hamstrings to reverse the movement and return to the vertical position.

Hamstring curl with fitball

While the other curl variations really target the hamstrings, this one engages the glutes as well, as these muscles work to keep the hips upright. Also, the movement of the ball activates the abdominals because they need to work to keep the body stable.

1. We will lie on the ground with our arms at our sides.
2. We will place the feet on top of a Swiss exercise ball or fitball, with the knees bent at 90 degrees.
3. We will slowly extend the legs and stretch the knees, keeping the upper part of the body glued to the ground.
4. We will reverse the movement slowly.

While doing this exercise, we will prevent the hips from sinking to the ground. We must keep them aligned with the knees. For that you have to squeeze your buttocks strongly.