Hey everybody, it's Dr. Jo! Today I am going to show you some hamstring strengthening exercises.
Now I've already showed you a whole lot of stretching exercises for your hamstrings,
so you can check those out on my other video. Once you've gotten everything stretched out,
you can come here and we'll do some strengthening. So we're going to start off on our backs.
Here we go. The first exercise we're gonna do is called bridging. So you want to have
your feet about shoulder width apart. You want your neck to be nice and relaxed, you
don't want to strain your neck, and what you're gonna do is you're gonna go straight up. Now
you want to keep yourself in a line. You don't want to hyper extend your back and arch it,
and you don't want to be slumped down either. You want to come where you are in a straight
line, and you are just going to pause, and slowly come back down. That's working those
hamstring muscles back there. Do about 10-15 until you feel that burn, and if you get to
20-25 and it's really easy, then you can switch to one leg. You're still coming straight up,
and you want to be in a straight line. You don't want to be arched, and you don't want
to be down low. If you are down low, if you can't get straight, then that means you probably
not ready for a single leg. Slowly coming down, slowly coming back up. So that's the
single leg bridging. Then the next one, I'm going to have you roll over onto your tummy.
This would be a good one if you have some ankle weights or some kind of weight you can
put around your ankle. You will probably eventually want to use ankle weights. Otherwise, just
try it without it, and see how it feels. It depends on what kind of injury you have to
your hamstring. What you are going to do is just bring your heel back as far as you can
to your bottom. Now my back is probably arched a little bit because I am up on my elbows.
You don't have to be up on your elbows. Make sure you are comfortable. If you want to lie
all the way down like this you can, but you really want to go nice and controlled, all
the way back as far as you can. Slowly come back down. So the next exercise we're gonna
do is going to be standing up. Okay, so the next hamstring strengthening exercise is going
to be standing. With your standing exercises hold onto something to start off with, you
can even just get a chair and hold onto the chair, but you want to make sure that you're
stable, so you are doing the correct form. If you're not doing the correct form, then
you are not really getting good exercise. So the key with this one is the top part of
your leg, you want it to stay flat and even with the other leg. So I'm going to show you
what I am talking about. You wanna curl your leg back, a hamstring curl, and keep this
part in the same spot. So your hip is not flexing. If you're coming up like this, that's
not the exercise that we are looking for, so see if you can keep your hip straight,
and just bend at your knee. So you are curling back. This is another one that if you can
do this 20-25 times, and you're not having any pain, then you can get some ankle weights,
and start building yourself up to get more resistance for that hamstring curl. The last
two exercises I'm going to show you, I'm going to briefly go over them because I did show
you them in the knee strengthening exercise video. So you can go check that one out to
have a little more detail. So the last two are squats and lunges. So the next key component
with the squat is, remember how we talked about, you don't want your knees going in
front of your toes. So in the other video, I had you actually sit down onto something
like a chair or a couch, but I'm just going to show you without anything behind me, and
this is the higher level where you know you can squat down and come back up without falling.
You want your feet about shoulder width apart and you want to make sure those knees do not
go in front of the toes. If you are squatting down like this, that is not what we are looking
for. Stick your bottom back like you are going to find a chair. So you're squatting down.
You're keeping equal weight through your feet. I'm not back on my heels, and I'm not up on
my toes, but there's equal weight through out my feet. I'm squatting down and coming
back up. Use your arms as a balancer, bring your hips forward, your center of balance,
make sure it's not too far forward, and not too far back. If I'm trying to sit, and put
my bottom straight down, I'm not going to be able to do that without my knees going
in front of my toes. Squatting down, and coming back up. So that's the squat. The last one
is a lunge. So in the other video, I showed some books on the ground that you could use
as a target. Now this is the step up where you don't have a target, but same kind of
thing, you want to get in your lunge position, but you don't want that knee going in front
of the toes. You want your toes pointed forward. Toes pointed forward in the back as well.
You're going to go straight down to the ground and come back up. You can either stay in one
spot, as long as your knee stays behind your toes, or when you lunge down, you can step
back, and that's going to give you that extra push on those hamstrings. So you can start
off in one spot, do about 10-15 of those. Then make sure you switch sides, or you can
lunge down and come back up. Alright, so there you have it, those are your hamstring strengthening
exercises. And remember if you want to see the modified versions of the squats and lunges,
go check out the knee strengthening exercises at askdoctorjo.com And remember be safe, have
fun, and I hope you feel better soon!