Gently extend your knee, bringing your foot up toward the ceiling. Start by flexing one hip up to about 90° and placing both hands behind your knee. This is also more of an active stretch, because your quads will have to work to straighten your knee, which might be quite the challenge depending on how tight you are. This is a nice hamstring stretch because you can do it lying down on a bed or couch, making it a safe variation for people who may be a fall risk. Remember to keep that knee straight and always lean into it from the hip (keep your back straight).Īnd don’t be afraid to hold onto a wall or chair while performing this stretch – remember, it’s a stretch, not a balance exercise.Īgain, holding for 30 sec is a good place to start, 3-4x each leg, alternating sides. Just keep in mind, the higher the object is, the more stretch you’re gonna feel. This is basically the standing version of the stretch mentioned above. Plus I have an ottoman in my attic for easy access when working out.Īnyway, for this variation, you need to find something to prop your foot up on – a chair, ottoman, stool, box, bench…pretty much any stationary object you can get a foot on. #2 Elevated Hamstring StretchĮven though I don’t stretch that much, when I do stretch my hamstrings, this is the one I usually choose because I feel like it provides a great stretch. Putting your foot up on an ottoman or stool will provide a little more stretch.Īim for 3- 4 sets of 30 sec for each leg. With this stretch, try to keep your knee straight and gently lean into it from the hip (instead of rounding your back to lean forward). This is one of the most gentle hamstring stretches around because you get to sit in a comfortable chair while doing it, making this one of the best options for folks with achy joints or mobility issues.Īnd depending on how tight your hamstrings are, you might not even need an ottoman or stool – keeping your leg straight and resting on the floor might be enough. 5 Easy Hamstring Stretches To Help Improve Your Flexibility 1. Ok, know that we have a little background info, let’s get to the stretches themselves. Luckily, that means they can adapt to stretching and lengthen as well, it’s never too late to start stretching. Turns out our muscles are good at adapting to how we use them, so it doesn’t take that long for them to tighten up. Sitting at a desk, driving, watching tv, all of these positions contribute to our hamstrings getting tight. Yup, think about what position sitting in a chair puts our hamstrings in – with our knees bent to about 90 degrees, meaning our hamstrings are in a shortened position. Well, mostly because most of us don’t spend that much time with our knees extended and our hamstrings lengthened – most of us spend the majority of our days in the opposite position… It also gives us an idea as to how having tight hamstrings can affect our backs, hips, and knees.īut why do so many of us have tight hamstrings to begin with? Since the hamstrings are located in the back of our thighs and function to bend our knees and extend our hips, this means we have to extend our knees and bend our hips to stretch them. I mention all this because knowing where a muscle is and what it does makes it easier to stretch – stretching is essentially lengthening a muscle. This means the hamstrings are used mostly for flexing, or bending our knee, but they also help extend our hips. The hamstrings are known as the muscles in the back of our thighs, but they actually consist of 3 different muscles: the biceps femuris, the semitendinosus, and the semimembranosus.Īll 3 muscles start at our ischial tuberosity (the back part of our pelvis) and connect down to the top of our tibias (or the fibula in the case of the biceps femoris). In this article, I’ll go over some of the easiest hamstring stretches out there, but before we dive in to the stretches themselves, I want to start with a quick anatomy lesson. Hamstring tightness can contribute to a lot of different common ailments, including back pain, hip pain, and knee pain, but luckily a little stretching can go a long way to help relieve these issues.Īnd there are many different ways to stretch your hamstrings – one stretch isn’t necessarily better than another, it’s all about finding ones that are comfortable for ya. Which is unfortunate, considering how much better a lot of us would feel if we did spend a little more time stretching.Īnd this is especially true when it comes to the hamstrings. I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that most of us aren’t stretching nearly enough – I know I’m not and a large part of my job is teaching people how to stretch therapeutically.
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