Which is stronger quads or hamstrings

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Connect with us. About us. Obituaries Homes Jobs Classifieds. Careers Advertise Legal Contact. Log in. Account Manage my subscription Activate my subscription Log out. Keep your quads and hamstrings strong and flexible These muscles are important. A few key exercises can help you get them - and keep them - in shape. By Sally Anderson. It's safe and forces the hamstrings to work. How to: Lie on your back with your legs straight. Put sliders or towels under your feet if you're on a hardwood floor or other smooth surface.

Pull your heels in towards your butt and, at the same time, lift your hips up. Keep pulling until your heels are under your knees and your butt is in the air. Then, extend your legs out and drop your butt to the ground, returning to the start position. How to: Sit in the leg curl machine with your back flat against the chair. Your legs should be straight out with the pad under the bottom of your calf muscle.

Pull the pad down towards your butt as far as you can, then slowly raise your legs back to the start position. While the hamstrings tend to be weaker than the quadriceps, sometimes the quads are actually weaker. This could be due to surgery or injury, but either way you should strengthen them with this isolation exercise. How to: Sit in the leg extension machine with your back flat against the back of the chair.

If anything they should enhance it! The statement that the hip flexors pull the pelvis down anterior rotation is accurate, but during the swing-through of the thigh, the pelvis remains in its normal anatomical position and even rotates somewhat backward upward rotation not downward as stated. Downward rotation occurs during the push-off. This is why we see an arch in the lower back during the push-off in sprinters.

The pelvis rotates forward to allow for an effective push off to occur well behind the body. This is not opinion, it can be verified and seen on high-speed video tape. To compare the hamstrings to the quadriceps is tricky at best. In fact, the researchers noted that unlike the general population, the hamstring:quad of the elite females was the same as elite male runners. While higher hamstring:quad may be a function of running properly over a long time, it may also be true that working toward a greater hamstring:quad as a novice runner will help you improve your running.

Indeed, of those runners who reported doing resistance exercise regularly, the highly trained group spent more time working on their hamstrings. The next important result was that at the fastest speeds of knee rotation, higher hamstring:quad correlated to superior running economy.

This may be a critical component of what made the highly-trained runners perform better. Running economy is probably the single most important factor for running performance. Improving it simply by making your hamstrings stronger is a no-brainer.

There are two ways to improve hamstring:quad. You can either increase hamstring strength or reduce quadriceps strength.