Which leg curl makes your hamstrings bigger?
Greater Hamstrings Muscle Hypertrophy but Similar Damage Protection after Training at Long versus Short Muscle Lengths
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Sitting and curling your legs makes your hamstrings grow more than lying down and curling — but both help protect your muscles from soreness after hard exercise.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 560 / 90
Evidence Score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. Considered the gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Sitting and curling your legs makes your hamstrings grow more than lying down and curling — but both help protect your muscles from soreness after hard exercise.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 560 / 90
Evidence Score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. Considered the gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Publication
Authors
Maeo S, Huang M, Wu Y, Sakurai H, Kusagawa Y, Sugiyama T, Kanehisa H, Isaka T
Related Content
Claims (5)
Seated and prone leg curls reduce the risk of muscle damage from eccentric exercise to the same degree, even though they stretch the muscle differently. The total amount of training done matters more for protection than how much the muscle is stretched during each exercise.
After 12 weeks of either seated or prone leg curl exercises, individuals experience similar reductions in muscle damage caused by intense eccentric exercise, as shown by less change in MRI scans of muscle tissue and smaller losses in maximum strength.
When performing seated leg curls with the hamstrings stretched, the long head of the biceps femoris and the semitendinosus grow 14–24% more than when trained at shorter lengths, but the short head of the biceps femoris grows only 10% regardless of stretch position.
After 12 weeks of seated leg curl exercises, healthy young adults experience a 14% increase in hamstring muscle volume, which is greater than the 9% increase seen with prone leg curl exercises, because seated leg curls place more mechanical tension on the hamstrings when they are stretched.
Performing seated leg curls leads to a 20–28% increase in muscle volume in the proximal regions of the semitendinosus and biceps femoris long head, which are the areas most prone to strain injuries.