Best Exercise For Hamstrings

All you guys who are into mma/wrestling, which excercise would you say is the best for the hamstrings out of iether good mornings or leg curls??

I’m about to buy a new bench and if good mornings are better than leg curls I won’t bother buying a bench with a leg curl attachment on it.

I’ve always thought leg curls gave better hamstring development as mine are usually more sore after doing curls than they are from good mornings.

Thanks

Jay

Of the two, goodmornings. Although I think you could stand to benefit from romanian deadlifts even better if you don’t have access to a GHR.

NOT…EVEN…CLOSE

Good mornings are much better.

In fact, unless you really, really focus on keeping the hips down, shoulders high, and toes pointed–the leg curl is close to useless. Maybe as a super-set closer, but still you ned to key in on form to get any benefit.

Soreness equates poorly to an effective
workout

I would say Good Morning too. Although that’s nothing wrong with leg curl in general, I personally think that martial artist should avoid training lying down on a machine (lying machine leg curl) or sitting down in a machine (seated machine leg curl) at least for most of the time.

Exception to the above would be those who have underdeveloped posterior chain.

I would go for GHR for knee flexion, and GM, SLDL and cable pull-through from hip extension.

My 2cents,

Geek boy

Both are good and needed for martial artists. The hamstrings need to be trained as both knee flexors and hip extensors.

GHR’s would be a better option than curls if you have a bench available, though.

-Dan

Best results I ever got for hams was PL squats, but I’ve never done GMs for more than a few weeks.

Glute ham Raise, reverse hypers, pull throughs

GM’s and sprints.

I know this wasn’t exactly your question, but check out this article:

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=826798

I say Box Squat or PL squat as your ME exercise.

I don’t like GM’s as a ME exercise cause I tend to overpower my hamstrings and use my lower back which is strong enough. But using it with lighter loads and higher reps (ie, 6-8) it is a GREAT assistance exercise for me and has greatly brought up my hammies.

In your case between the two exercises i’d choose Good mornings, i feel RDL’s hit it a bit more…

GHR is THE exercise for hamstrings, if you can even try practicing the manual one’s its something at least (and hell of a feat of strength).

Another exercise I like is Snatch Deadlifts off of a box… recruit’s posterior chain and hip flexors like CRAZY cause you’re ridiculously deep.