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Strengthen your legs with this hamstring and glute workout

Workout Guides

Looking for a leg day workout that will grow your glutes and hamstrings? Pure Fitness Personal Trainer Harley has shared 5 of the best hamstring and glute exercises that will strengthen and sculpt your muscles.

WHY STRENGTHEN YOUR GLUTES AND HAMSTRINGS?

There’s more to strong legs than an Instagram-worthy behind – almost everyone can benefit from strengthening their glutes and hamstrings. Both muscles are involved in key functional movements: glutes help to stabilize your hips and pelvis, and are responsible for hip extension movements, while your hamstrings are involved in extending your legs and bending your knees.

Having strong, supple glutes and hamstrings helps to:

  • Improve posture
  • Prevent injuries
  • Reduce back pain
  • Increase athletic performance

Unfortunately, sedentary lifestyles wreak havoc on these muscles. Sitting down for long periods of time can cause weak and tight glutes and hamstrings, so for those who sit down for work, doing dedicated hamstring and glute exercises is really important.

HOW TO STRENGTHEN GLUTES AND HAMSTRINGS

The best way to strengthen and grow any muscles is through regular resistance training, ensuring you progressively overload the resistance (for example by increasing the reps, time, or weight) to challenge the muscles.

The below hamstring and glute workout uses weights to create resistance. You can do this workout 2-3x a week, or pair it with another leg workout (you can find more leg and glute workouts here.)

GLUTE AND HAMSTRING WORKOUT

Perform 3 – 4 sets of each exercise, with 45 – 60 seconds rest between each set. Aim to increase either the weights or reps each week to ensure you are continually challenging the muscles to help them grow.

  • Pause Squats – 10 reps
  • Romanian Deadlifts – 8 reps

While this workout uses RDLs, feel free to switch it up – we look at different deadlift variations here.

  • Hip Thrusts – 10 reps
  • Bulgarian Split Squats – 10 reps per side
  • Box Step Ups – 20 reps (10 per side)

This workout is best done at the gym, but you can adapt it to be a home workout by using bodyweight or grabbing heavy items from around your house.

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