3 Hamstring Exercises with Dumbbells to Maximize your Workout

Dumbbell exercises can sometimes be more effective than weighted bar exercises. These three simple hamstring exercises with dumbbells can help improve your overall strength and definition gain from your trips to the gym. Dumbbells also give a more varied approach to many exercises allowing you to customize traditional exercises with slight tweaks. Constant muscle growth and retention requires you to do more than just run constantly. These three following exercises will be great additions to your workout routines.

1. Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift –The Romanian Deadlift is a great hamstring exercise. While this version is similar to a stiff legged deadlift, and the traditional Romanian deadlift, but only in the sense that you have to move your hips back during the descent. The key difference is that instead of using a weighted bar you use two dumbbells of equal weight, one in each hand. This often allows one to go lower and lift heavier weight but also takes some of the focus directly off your back making it a bit safer for the lower back. The Dumbbell version of this exercise also allows a better range of motion because you do not have to miss your knees with the bar. This will put the burn back into working your hamstrings.

2. Single Dumbbell Good Mornings – A Single Dumbbell Good Morning is different than its traditional bar weight counterpart. You now start with your feet together as you would for a toe touch standing stretch. Once in position you will hold the dumbbell with both hands at arm’s length resting against your body, and then bend down like you would for a toe touch, and the slowly back up. Ideally you will bend until your upper body is parallel to the floor, but this is not always possible so take a slow pace to ensure you keep your balance and do not strain your lower back.

3. Dumbbell Hamstring Raises – Not much different than the traditional version of the Hamstring Raise, now you will hold a single dumbbell against your chest. To startyour feet need to be anchored and your knees bent at 90 degrees with your dumbbell held against you. Simply have a partner hold the back of your ankles down in the same manner they would for a sit-up you would have done in elementary school. Then kneeling on the floor, slowly lower your upper body to the floor using your hamstrings to control your decent.

You will probably need to catch yourself at the bottom, at least in the beginning, so you don’t smash your nose. Chances are you will also need to give yourself a slight push off the floor in order to get moving up again, and then use your hamstrings to pull you back up. This is a hard exercise and few people are good at it in the beginning, but with time and practice it can sculpt your hamstrings and gluteus like nothing else.
These simple hamstring exercises with dumbbells can greatly enhance anyone’s workout. These are three simple ways thatyour hamstrings can develop strengthand definition. Mixing these into your daily gym routines can add new ways to continue getting your body into better condition.