How to Build Athletic Hamstrings

Taking the Hamstring from Pain to Elite Performance

Your hamstrings are the key to explosive speed, power, and agility—but when they're weak or injured, your performance suffers.

Whether you're an athlete or a weekend warrior, hamstring pain can stop you in your tracks.

Hamstring injuries and pain are some of the most common muscular injuries & setbacks athletes face.

From constant tightness to full-blown strains, these problems can slow you down, decrease your explosiveness, and keep you off the field or out of the gym. Many athletes never come back the same after a hamstring injury, and it’s often due to an incomplete or poor return to performance plan.

In this article, we’ll take you step by step—from easing pain and tightness to building powerful, athletic hamstrings that can withstand the demands of elite-level performance.

---

Understanding the Hamstrings

Anatomy Overview:

The hamstrings are a group of three muscles located at the back of your thigh: the biceps femoris, semitendinosus, and semimembranosus. These muscles work together to extend your hip, bend your knee, and control leg movement during powerful athletic motions like sprinting and jumping.

Function:

Your hamstrings play a critical role in explosive movements, from sprinting to jumping and changing directions. Strong and flexible hamstrings allow you to run faster, jump higher, and maintain stability during quick movements. However, when your hamstrings are tight or weak, your performance suffers, and you become more susceptible to injury.

Common Issues:

Hamstrings are prone to several common issues, especially among athletes. These include:

• Strains or Tears: Often caused by overstretching or sudden movements, such as sprinting or kicking.

• Tightness: A frequent issue caused by lack of flexibility or overuse, which can limit your range of motion.

• Imbalances: When your quadriceps (front of the thigh) are stronger than your hamstrings, it creates muscular imbalance, increasing the risk of injury.

HAMSTRING STRAINS & TEARS

Hamstring strains are caused by a rapid extensive contraction or a violent stretch of the hamstring muscle group which causes high mechanical stress.

This type of injury presents as sudden pain in the back of the thigh due to hamstring muscle fiber disruption, without direct external contact to the thigh.

Hamstring strains are common in sports with a dynamic character like sprinting, jumping, and contact sports such as Australian Rules football (AFL), American football, and soccer where quick eccentric contractions are regular. In soccer, it is the most frequent injury.

These injuries can be categorized as acute (resulting from an impact or traumatic event causing sudden pain), overuse (caused by excessive training load over time), and chronic or recurrent (involving repeated injury due to decreased function and inadequate healing).

CLASSIFICATION & CHARACTERISTICS

• Grade 1 (mild): just a few fibres of the muscle are damaged or have ruptured. This rarely influences the muscle's power and endurance. Pain and sensitivity usually happen the day after the injury (depends from person to person). Normal patient complaints are stiffness on the posterior side of the leg. Patients can walk fine. There can be a small swelling, but the knee can still bend normally.

• Grade 2 (medium): approximately half of the fibres are torn. Symptoms are acute pain, swelling and a mild case of function loss. The walk of the patient will be influenced. Pain can be reproduced by applying precision on the hamstring muscle or bending the knee against resistance.

• Grade 3 (severe): ranging from more than half of the fibres ruptured to complete rupture of the muscle. Both the muscle belly and the tendon can suffer from this injury. It causes massive swelling and pain. The function of the hamstring muscle can't be performed anymore and the muscle shows great weakness.

THE 4 PHASE HAMSTRING PROTOCOL

PHASE 1 - RESTORE MOBILITY & MOVEMENT

This phase is incredibly simple. We are going to spam an exercise called a hip hinge.

To make this as simple as possible for you the suggestion is as follows:

• 50 repetitions of bodyweight hip hinges, twice per day (morning & evening).

• We continue doing this until pain free, and then we move onto the next phase.

SINGLE LEG ARABESQUES

This is one of my favourite ways to commence the hip hinge, as you also get some balance work integrated simultaneously.

PHASE 2 - LOADING PHASE

This is where we commence adding weight to the hip hinge movement.

You should only progress to this level if you are pain free & able to tolerate mobility drills described in phase 1.

Everything I have listed here will be completed 3x per week.

• Monday: Loaded Hip Hinges

• Tuesday: Phase 1 Exercises

• Wednesday: Loaded Hip Hinges

• Thursday: Phase 1 Exercises

• Friday: Loaded Hip Hinges

• Saturday - Phase 1 Exercises

• Sunday - Phase 1 Exercises

THE EXERCISES

1- LOADED HIP HINGES (SINGLE LEG RDL)

3 SETS: 6-10 REPETITIONS (EACH SIDE)

• Start with very light weight, and build up based on pain free symptoms

2- KNEE FLEXION (HAMSTRING CURLS)

3 SETS: 6-10 REPETITIONS

Credit: RPD, Mike Isratael

3- LOW INTENSITY JUMPS & JOGGING

SINGLE LEG MULTI DIRECTIONAL POGOS

SETS: 2-3, REPS: 10-20 REPETITIONS

A SKIPS

SETS: 4 (Walk Back Recovery), DISTANCE: 10-20 meters / yards

PHASE 3 - ECCENTRIC OVERLOAD PHASE

Eccentric (or muscle lengthening) phases are those that are most likely to re-injure the hamstring.

As a result, adding this into training will greatly minimise the chances of injury. So how do we do this?

WEEKLY SETUP

• Monday: Eccentric Overload Day (RDL)

• Tuesday: Flexibility / Bodyweight Hip Hinges

• Wednesday: Nordics & SL Smith Machine RDL

• Thursday: Flexibility / Bodyweight Hip Hinges

• Friday: Nordics & SL Smith Machine RDL

• Saturday: Flexibility / Bodyweight Hip Hinges

• Sunday: Flexibility / Bodyweight Hip Hinges

ECCENTRIC RDL

SETS: 3, REPETITIONS: 6-10

This Exercise can also be completed as follows:

• Slow Tempo: Slow 5 second lowering with each repetition

• Speed Eccentrics: Where you allow the bar to ‘fall fast’ so you are essentially catching the speed of the bar on the way down.

BANDED NORDICS

3 SETS: 6-10 REPETITIONS

I typically do not like nordic hamstring curls due to how they are typically performed as ‘flops’.

Whenever I prescribe this exercise, it is with control of both the shortening & lengthening phases of the exercise:

PRIME TIMES (HAMSTRING SPEED OVERLOAD)

This is where you can start to focus on speed hamstring drills

4 sets (walk back recovery) - 10-20 yards/meters.

PHASE 4 - REINTRODUCING SPRINTS

In this phase, we are looking to develop gradually back into linear speed work & maximal jumps.

I am going to show you examples of how to do exactly both, but first, a rough weekly example:

• Monday: Acceleration Sprint Session + RDL

• Tuesday: Flexibility or Bodyweight Hip Hinges

• Wednesday: Flexibility or Bodyweight Hip Hinges

• Thursday: Maximal Effort Sprint Session + Hamstring Curls (Machine or Nordics)

• Friday: Flexibility or Bodyweight Hip Hinges

• Saturday: Loaded Hip Hinge & Nordics

• Sunday: Flexibility or Bodyweight Hip Hinges

SPRINT DEVELOPMENT

TEMPO RUNS

The beauty of using this as a starting point is that you can choose any intensity and distance of your liking.

This could be a very slow jog, 50% of maximal effort, 70% of maximal effort… The list goes on.

It also allows you to build up at your own pace, as abrupt take offs & accelerations will place greater load through the hamstrings.

WALK IN STARTS

Walk in starts, once again make the acceleration phase of the sprint less intense. As a result, you can ease your way into explosive take off phases.

3 POINT STARTS

This will be one of the most intense acceleration variations & should be used at the end of the injury recovery process. You can still choose any intensity of your liking & do not need to be starting at 90-100% from the get go.

SUMMARY

Hamstring health is essential for explosive speed, agility, and overall athletic performance. Weak or injured hamstrings can severely limit your capabilities, making it crucial to address pain, tightness, and injury through a structured plan.

This article has outlined a step-by-step approach to understanding the anatomy, common issues, and recovery protocols, from mobility exercises in the early stages to advanced eccentric overload and sprint reintroduction phases. By following these guidelines, athletes can strengthen their hamstrings, prevent future injuries, and achieve elite-level performance.