mihou
Rang: Administrateur
Nombre de messages : 8092
Localisation : Washington D.C.
Date d'inscription : 28/05/2005
 | | Mini-Article: Frankenstein's Hamstring Exercise | |
Mini-Article: Frankenstein's Hamstring Exercise
by
TCIt's aliiivvvveeee!
— Colin Clive, from Frankenstein
While the prone hamstring curl probably isn't the best hamstring
exercise, it's probably the most common. As such, it seems all the
more important that trainees do it correctly, and, while they're at
it, maximize its effects.Hence this hybrid leg curl. Like Frankenstein creating his
monster, we've combined several tips from different strength
coaches and made one mother of a leg-curl exercise.The ExerciseOkay, this one requires a bit of coordination, so those of you
who have trouble patting your head and scratching your belly while
whistling Dixie might want to sit this one out.Assume the usual position on the prone leg-curl machine, but
instead of doing both legs at once, we'd like you to train one leg
at a time, starting with the weakest one. In Australian strength
coach Ian King's words, if you don't know which is weakest, my
little marsupial, you soon will. These one-legged leg curls are also to be done using the 1-1/3
technique. (Hamstrings respond especially well to eccentric work,
so we might as well take advantage of that fact.)As you raise the lower half of your leg, you'll touch the heel
to your butt over the course of 2 seconds, pause for 1 second,
lower the heel 1/3 of the way down, and again pause for another
second. Then, you'll return the heel to the butt taking another
second, and then lower the weight all the way down to the starting
position over the course of 3 seconds.   That's one rep, but not so fast, bubba. There's one more trick
to learn.As you raise the weight, we'd like you to flex your foot
"upwards" and toward the knee (toes pointed toward the knee). Then,
as you begin to lower the weight, for your 1/3 of the way down rep,
point your toes away from the body.  When you curl the lower leg up again, point the toes "upward"
again, and when you lower the weight all the weigh down, point your
toes away again.Got that? Whenever you're raising the weight, pull your toes in
toward the body, and whenever you lower the weight, point them away
from the body.Why the soft shoe routine? Well, the gastrocnemius is one of the
muscles that assist the hamstrings in flexing the lower leg toward
the butt. However, by pointing the toes away from the body, we're
inactivating the gastrocnemius, thus making the hamstrings do all
the work on the eccentric, or lowering part of the
movement.Pretty nifty, huh? | |
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