Extension and bending of the legs in the simulator while sitting, lying down, in the machine. Exercise, technique, which muscles work

An effective and popular leg exercise. Trains the back of the thigh and statically loads the lower leg muscles. It is one of the main ones in any training program.

Target muscles: hamstrings.

Various implementation options:

1. Alternating leg curls in a lying machine
2. Leg curls with dumbbell lying on the floor

Advice! If your gym doesn't have a leg curl machine. Use a simple dumbbell and perform curls while lying on the floor.

Description and benefits of the exercise

Due to the fact that the thigh muscles responsible for bending the legs are used extremely rarely in everyday life, the quadriceps of people who do not specifically train them are small.

In order for the body to look symmetrical and beautiful, and the muscles to develop evenly, it is imperative to work out this muscle group. The best option is to bend the legs while lying down, during which the muscles will be properly trained.

Execution technique

Initial position:

1. Lie face down on the machine bench so that your knees are outside the support, the soft movable rollers rest on your ankles, and the bend of the bench (if provided for by the design of the machine) is on your waist.
2. Grasp the side handles of the machine with your hands, firmly fix your body on the bench and place your feet parallel to each other.

Movement:

1. As you exhale, using an isolated effort from your thigh muscles, lift the weight, bending your knees and bringing the rollers closer to your buttocks.
2. Hold the top position for a few seconds.
3. As you inhale, smoothly straighten your legs to the starting position without locking your knees.
4. Without pause, move on to the next repetition.
5. Perform the planned volume of bending according to the training program.

Attention! Recommendations!

Execution options!

Muscles involved

The exercise works the muscle groups of the legs, so it is not surprising that many athletes always work in the gym with such a simulator.

There are between 640 and 850 muscles in the human body, and 200 of them are used during walking.

Basic

This is an isolated exercise for the hamstrings. For this reason, girls especially loved it.

Additional

Additionally, the work includes the popliteal, calf and gracilis muscles. In addition to them, the tibialis anterior and rectus femoris muscles work as stabilizers.

Tips and tricks

In order to learn how to perform the lying leg bend exercise correctly, below are the main mistakes that novice athletes make.

Basic mistakes of newbies

The main mistakes that beginners make include the following:

• Full knee extension at the lowest point. This is not recommended, since the load on the muscles is not maintained.
• Uncontrolled "walking" of the limbs. The legs need to be quickly raised up and slowly, while controlling the movements, lowered down. This way the load will be optimal and the training effective.
• Knees hanging off the bench during training. This is unacceptable because it can cause injury.
• Newbies have a lot of weight.
  There is no need to get carried away with excessive loads. At first it may seem easy to do the exercise, but it is worth considering that for an untrained person, a heavy load can damage the hamstrings. The first bodybuilding machines were invented in Sweden in 1857.

Features of the exercise

Despite the general simplicity of the exercise, there are still a number of features that are worth paying attention to:

• You need to firmly press your pelvis to the bench and fix your body.
• Hands hold tightly to the special handles of the simulator.
• Your legs should be raised high so that they almost touch your buttocks.
• The downward movement is slower than the upward movement.
• The knees do not need to be straightened at the lowest point so that the muscles are tense all the time.

Contraindications

Before going to the gym, it is best to consult a doctor to analyze the state of your health and build a training program on this basis. There are no special contraindications for lying leg curls.

It is only worth noting that the exercise is not recommended for people who have diseases of the knee joints. It is important to monitor your feelings during training. There should be discomfort, since the muscles are under constant tension, but pain should not be allowed to occur.

Calf curls vs straight leg rows[edit | edit code]

It is generally accepted that training with free weights is more effective than training on machines. However, there are exceptions to all rules. Training the hamstrings with lying calf curls will provide greater muscle growth than straight-legged barbell rows. These results were published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning by the American scientist Brad Shenfeld [1].

The experiment involved 10 men who had previously trained with weights. Athletes performed barbell rows on straight legs and calf curls in a lying machine. Muscle activity and electrical conductivity were measured during exercise using electrodes attached to the muscles. The more electrical activity in a muscle, the more tense the muscle is and the greater the stimulus it receives to grow.

Leg curls produced more electrical activity in the lower thigh than straight-legged rows. The curl also mobilized more muscle fibers in the outer and inner biceps femoris.

The upper hamstrings responded equally to both flexion and straight-legged pulls. Thus, as repetitions of calf curls were performed, the degree of muscle tension was cumulatively higher, indicating greater isolation of the hamstrings in this exercise. However, this does not mean that the stiff-legged row is an ineffective exercise.

“It will be enough to slightly increase the duration of the approach, for example by slowing down the pace, and the identified deficiencies will be compensated by the appearance of more growth factors in muscle cells, as well as additional recruitment of new muscle fibers.”

Comparison of electrical activity in the muscles of the back of the legs

What can replace the exercise?

If there is no such machine in the gym or you want to have an alternative for home workouts, then you can perform other exercises that work the same muscle groups.

One of these would be leg raises from a standing backward position. It activates the hamstrings, glutes, calves and lower back. In addition, it will also develop flexibility and balance skills.

Leg curls can be done at home while lying on the floor . In this case, the body is pressed tightly to the floor, the arms are folded under the head, and a dumbbell is held between the feet. The effect of such an exercise will be almost identical to that performed on the simulator.

As you can see, the leg curl exercise is simple, but at the same time very effective. Having learned the correct technique, you can achieve results in a fairly short time.

When to expect an effect

Leg extension in a sitting machine, included in the training process and performed in accordance with the specified recommendations, can bring results in 2-3 weeks, that is, after 2-3 full workouts. The effect of the exercises is manifested in the form of clearer outlines of the medial head of the femur and a clear separation between the other 3 groups of muscle fibers.

Straightening the legs at the knee joint on a sports machine is a universal tool for achieving your goals. Despite performing the exercise from a sitting position, it does not provide rigid fixation for the back muscles. But adherence to the training technique and the correct selection of the load make it an indispensable tool in the athlete’s arsenal.