Hamstring Problem for ladies

[TripleXx]

My g/f for some reason is lean and very striated everywhere but the back of her leg. For some reason no matter what we try it stays the same. Her leg routine looks like this:

smith machine squats 4x15
lunges 4 sets
leg ext 4x15
leg curls 4x15

She does deads with back. I know that everyone is going to say post her diet but i actually paid Swolekat(Fitness Expert) to draw her diet up and she has been following exactly. Maybe you all can help.

And also the routine above she has been on for three weeks now. She had been doing the routine that swolekat drew up for her for the past 6 months that consisted of alot of failure training and supersets but did not include lunges or squats.

[coffee-guy]

My g/f for some reason is lean and very striated everywhere but the back of her leg. For some reason no matter what we try it stays the same. Her leg routine looks like this:

smith machine squats 4x15
lunges 4 sets
leg ext 4x15
leg curls 4x15

She does deads with back. I know that everyone is going to say post her diet but i actually paid Swolekat(Fitness Expert) to draw her diet up and she has been following exactly. Maybe you all can help.

And also the routine above she has been on for three weeks now. She had been doing the routine that swolekat drew up for her for the past 6 months that consisted of alot of failure training and supersets but did not include lunges or squats.

SwoleCat is not a bad cat :D but unless she is getting lean enough to do a show she may not be able to see her hamstrings that well. Most people have a hard time with the lower back, glutes and hams as they tend to be the last things that come in - even when you're lean enough for a show...

[BBAddict]

I've heard a lot of people say doing stairs is great for hams/glutes. I definitely found when I did them for about a month that I saw more detail in those muscles than with any other type of cardio. I have a feeling you'd have to be carefull about not losing muscle mass in the hams if you do a lot of stairs because you risk overtraining.

[redsquirrel]

What about SLDL w/ heavier weights? I see she does them on back day, but is she doing standard DL??? When a female does SLDL, she has to remember to squeeze her butt as she brings up the weight every time. This puts much more emphasis on the hams rather than the back. Her lower back will be a little sore, but I always got a great pump in the hams from SLDL.

In all honesty, I saw the best results when I did Hams on a totally separate day, I paired it w/ shoulders. Right now, she's only doing one isolation exercise for hamstrings (curls). So, if she's wanting to build that she may want to try doing her hams this way.

I would do 8-10 reps at almost max weight. I would start w/ SLDL, (alternate DB and BB each week), then curls and then seated curls.

On the other hand, when I did my show- I had a couple lines in my hamstrings. And in all honesty, most women don't even get that- let alone get striations in their hams. In fact, one ofmy friends who recently became a pro BBer doesn't have but maybe one line on her hams. And that's on stage at Nationals. 90% of females say the back of a legs is almost the hardest for any female.

[go Yankees]

even guys don't get lines in their hams sometimes...maybe as she trains more and develops more "muscle maturity" her cuts will come...how old is she?

[TripleXx]

Well, the striations do not matter because she never plans on getting on stage but she does hold all of her water in her hams. Her quads are fine. She squats 275 for 6 reps. She just always thinks that she is fat because of her hams. I will try and seperate hams for the next few weeks and see if that helps out.

Yankees, she is only 20

[xxxkazxxx]

Redsquirrel might be onto something with doing DLifts on a totally different day. By accident one day between shoulder sets I got a little bored (must have had rediculous energy amounts this day) and threw in some deadlifts with my shoulder press weight. So it was much lighter than my normal DL weight too. Well it all seemed like fun and games at the time. But I darn near collapsed getting out of bed the next day. Couldnt touch my toes for what seemed like a century. So now I don't do deadlifts at any set time, I just do them when they least expect it on any non-leg day.

Good Luck

[redsquirrel]

Thanks for your exp, kaz...

The other huge benefit to doing hammies on a different day is pretty simple. If you do them on leg day when you do mostly quads, by the time you get to curls, your energy has been spent by doing the first 3 movements. In addition, if she's only doing 1 movement for them and not at her full potential, that right there could explain why she's not seeing much development. I used to trian legs the same way as she does now, and saw much more improvement when I put hams on a different day.

[xxxkazxxx]

I'm still in learning process. But when I learn things it's like walking into the sun after having your eyes in the dark for weeks. So redsquirrel, what you are saying is that hams should be treated like a major muscle group? Kinda like how we all forget the triceps. We all work so much on the front main muscle group, and always put the back groups (triceps, hamstrings) as the tail end training part. Probably why the backs of my arms still look like flabby pools of mud * haha*. I am on a mission now. Triceps and hamstrings :)

[Shibby]

If you ever looked at how much of your arm actually consists of the bicep, you would notice it's only a small percentage, like 30%, so yes tri's are very important. Flex your bicep and then put your fingers at the base of each side of the peak. Then notice how much of your arm is still left over :)

[redsquirrel]

So redsquirrel, what you are saying is that hams should be treated like a major muscle group? Kinda like how we all forget the triceps. We all work so much on the front main muscle group, and always put the back groups (triceps, hamstrings) as the tail end training part. Probably why the backs of my arms still look like flabby pools of mud * haha*. I am on a mission now. Triceps and hamstrings :)

I have seen the best result by doing it this way.

As for the triceps, I do them on Arm day. 8 sets of bi's, and 8 sets of tri's. Again, the logic behind it is simple because you are actually working arms more than once a week. Once on the day you do arms. Then you work bi's as a secondary movement on the day you do back, and tri's when you do chest. I also found that by doing back or chest by itself instead of pairing it w/ an arm movement I get greater strength added to my lifts for the major muscle groups.