50% off? That’s Black Friday — 50% extra is Christmas morning. But if you wanted 50% more hamstring gains on leg day, you don’t need to stampede over zealous shoppers or spend hours with wrapping paper; you just need to tweak your leg exercises.
A 2021 study (1) revealed that the seated leg curl station returned up to 50% more muscle growth than the prone, or lying-down, variation of the same exercise.
Building muscle is a battle, and you’ll win more battles with the right weaponry in your arsenal. When it comes to leg day hamstring exercises, the seated leg curl seems to have much more firepower.
Seated Hamstring Curls on Leg Day
In your gym, there’s probably a seated leg curl station and a prone leg curl station right next to one another. These two common pieces of gym equipment serve the same purpose — to the untrained eye and un-science’d brain, at least.
Authors Maeo & colleagues set out to investigate the effects of each variation on muscle hypertrophy and muscle damage.
According to their data, the seated leg curl created greater muscle volume than the prone leg curl. Specifically, a 14% increase versus a 9% gain.
Sounds too good to be true, right? Maybe. This is just one study, after all, observing two nearly identical leg day staples. But the results align with the leading science on muscle growth.
How It Works
A clear picture is beginning to emerge: Your muscles love experiencing high amounts of mechanical tension at long muscle lengths.
In plain English, a growing body of scientific literature shows that muscles grow more if you stress them while they’re stretched. (2)
Your hamstring muscle attaches past your knee and hip joints, like a rubber band strung around two moving hinges.
If your knee and hip bend at the same time, like during a back squat, your hamstring muscle “dangles” in a contracted position.
If your knee is straight while your hip bends (like during a standing forward fold stretch), your hammies are pulled taut.
Apply tension to that tightness and you’re cooking up some serious muscle growth.
On leg day, if you were to use the prone hamstring curl, the straight-hip position prevents you from fully lengthening your hamstrings. This is the proposed explanation for the discrepancy.
[Related: Best Whey Protein Powders for Building Muscle]
Your Next Leg Day
So, what do we do with this information? Should you stop doing prone leg curls altogether? No, they have their own utility. When it comes to prioritizing muscle growth, you want to eliminate redundancy in your workout routine as much as possible.
According to the leading science, seated leg curls do the same job as lying leg curls, just 50% better.
You might also consider starting your leg day workouts with seated hamstring curls. It’s an inside-baseball bodybuilding technique that physique pros have relied on for years to beef up their legs. A solid bodybuilding leg workout that actions this info might look like:
Seated Leg Curl: 4 x 8
Back, Front, or Hack Squat: 4 x 6
Romanian Deadlift: 2 x 12
Walking Lunge: 2 x 12
Leg Extension: 4 x 8
Calf Raise: 4 x 10
[Related: Best Pre-Workout Supplements for Hypertrophy]
More Training Content
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The Only Two Ab Exercises You Need for a Six-Pack
References
Maeo S, Huang M, Wu Y, Sakurai H, Kusagawa Y, Sugiyama T, Kanehisa H, Isaka T. Greater Hamstrings Muscle Hypertrophy but Similar Damage Protection after Training at Long versus Short Muscle Lengths. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2021 Apr 1;53(4):825-837. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000002523. PMID: 33009197; PMCID: PMC7969179.
Pedrosa, G. F., Lima, F. V., Schoenfeld, B. J., Lacerda, L. T., Simões, M. G., Pereira, M. R., Diniz, R. C. R., & Chagas, M. H. (2022). Partial range of motion training elicits favorable improvements in muscular adaptations when carried out at long muscle lengths. European journal of sport science, 22(8), 1250–1260.
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