All We Ever Do is Stretch Our Hamstrings in Yoga
Have you ever noticed how much we stretch our hamstring in yoga? (A lot!)
Anatomically speaking, the hamstrings are actually three muscles that cross the back of the hip and knee joints:
Biceps femoris
Semimembranosus
Semitendinosus
When the hamstrings contract, they flex (bend) the knee and extend (straighten) the hip. To stretch the hamstrings, we do the opposite of their actions: we extend the knee and flex the hip.
Check out how often we see this hamstring-stretching combination of knee extension and hip flexion in our foundational yoga asanas:
Janu sirsasana (head-to-knee pose)
Prasarita padottanasana (wide-legged forward fold)
Parsvottanasana (pyramid pose)
Supta padangusthasana (reclined big toe pose)
Upavishta konasana (wide-legged seated forward fold)
Uttanasana (standing forward fold)
And this list is really just a start. You can probably think of several more yoga asanas that stretch the hamstrings, right? The list seemingly never ends!
Now, there’s nothing wrong with stretching our hamstrings! Our muscles and connective tissues are tensile tissues, which means they respond well to pulling loads like stretching.
But if the hamstrings are the anatomical target in so many of our yoga poses, it’s interesting that we typically target them in one way only: passive stretching.
Another way we could target an area of the body is to strengthen it. But do we ever strengthen the hamstrings in yoga?
Let’s see… To strengthen the hamstrings, we’d need to perform knee flexion and/or hip extension against resistance. But this rarely happens in yoga!
Bottom line: yoga tends to focus a ton on hamstring flexibility and not at all on hamstring strength.
Is it problematic that yoga doesn’t strengthen the hamstrings?
Maybe not. Having strong hamstrings may not be a goal of yours, in which case it really doesn’t matter that we only stretch our hamstrings in yoga.
Or maybe having strong hamstrings is a goal of yours, but you build your hamstring strength from another activity (like strength training, for example). Once again, in this case, it doesn’t matter that yoga is all about hamstring stretching.
But if you’d rather not have weak, underloaded hamstrings — and if yoga is your main movement practice — then YES, it is a problem that yoga doesn’t strengthen the hamstrings.
In this case, you can rectify the problem by taking on a targeted hamstring strengthening practice. But how?
As it just so happens, we give tons of concrete and practical tips for how to strengthen your hamstrings in Episode 26 of our podcast, which is all about the hamstrings. Tune in to learn how to make your hamstrings happy! In the episode, we also discuss what hamstring cramps are all about, the deal with “yoga butt” (high hamstring pain), and so much more.
And speaking of hamstring strengthening, you can also build strength in your hamstrings with us in our 5 Weeks to Strong & Flexible Hamstrings program!
In this 5-week program, you’ll receive one 20-25 minute follow-along hamstring strengthening practice – taught by Travis Pollen, PhD, and demonstrated by Jenni Rawlings, E-RYT – every 3 days for 5 weeks.
Learn more and snag this program here! Your hamstrings will thank you. :)
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