How to train the hamstrings to jump higher
Isaiah, do the intro.
Isaiah:Hi. Wait. This is actually the intro of the video?
John:I just wanted to see how loud
Isaiah:you're Hey, guys. Today, we're gonna teach you guys how to grow Okay. Big hamstrings. Is that what we're doing? We want your hamstrings to pop out like they're biceps, which is coincidental because you do have a hamstring biceps muscle.
Isaiah:Pretty cool stuff. But does it help you jump higher? Does success really
John:today, Isaiah. I'm actually
Isaiah:I'm actually ready to intro
John:the video. Are you ready? Yeah. Do you wanna do the intro? Yeah.
John:Okay. Three two one action.
Isaiah:Are the hamstrings the reason I can jump 50.5 inches? Find out today in today's episode of the THB Strength podcast. But before we get into that, I wanna give a quick shout out to our lovely sponsors over at thbstrength.com. If you wanna jump higher, specifically, if you're not a bitch. And by not a bitch, I mean you like to train hard and you're not gonna quit after a month, and you truly love jumping, right?
Isaiah:You go to sleep and that's all you can think about. You wake up and you're excited, not because of life, but because you get to have a dunk session today. If that's you, go sign up. Specifically, I don't want to train you if you just saw some video of somebody jumping high and now you want to jump high and it's just a fad and you're gonna give up after a week. No, it's not who we want.
Isaiah:So if that's you, to tspstrength.com. You'll get coached by us.
Austin:Hey, Isaiah.
Isaiah:Yes, Austin.
Austin:You know what we should do?
Isaiah:What is that?
Austin:We should give them a discount.
Isaiah:No way. I don't know. It's already at a big discount.
Austin:Oh, really is.
John:It's actually yeah.
Austin:So if you are not a bitch, if you do wanna train, it doesn't matter if your mom calls you a bitch. If you are not a bitch, feel free to sign up at THP Strength dot com with coupon code THP for 10% off your first month. You're a
John:call you a bitch?
Austin:She has called me many things of that nature. Okay. Out of love. Out of love. Alright.
John:Perfect. Getting into the topic today, we're talking about your big old booty and how that plays a role with
Isaiah:your hemis.
John:I lied. We're talking about your hamstrings and how that helps you jump higher. So I'm John Evans. I'm the coach. I'm the high performance coach here at THB Strength.
John:I do know the topic today. This is Isaiah Rivera. He's delusional as hell. His daughter was up crying all night. This is Austin Burke.
Austin:I'm on
Isaiah:two hours of sleep.
John:He has a 50.5 inch vertical. He's gonna test 51 this summer. I can almost guarantee it. And Austin Burke has a 47 inch vertical in his When
Isaiah:you put pressure on me.
John:Just climbing up to climbing up the the ranks.
Isaiah:You know what John told us before me and Austin's last session? He said if we don't kill it, he's not coming to another dunk session.
John:I said I said, and I quote, I said, if you guys don't kill this, I'm never driving to Goldenrod again. The hellacious drive that that is, I was like, I refuse. But Hellacious. Halacious. Yeah.
John:That's the word I that's the word I wanna use. Anyways, getting into it, let's go through our experiences because there's a lot of bullshit on the Internet about the hamstring and how
Austin:it helps so much with being a better athlete
John:and all this different shit. Okay. So quickly before I even get into that, the hamstring is a multi joint muscle. There are three main knee flexors that we are talking about. So we're looking at semitendinosus, semimembranosus, and the biceps femoris.
John:So the semitendinosus and semimembranosus are on the inside of your leg, the medial side. So Isaiah, if could turn around and show your hamstring. All Do it, yeah. So this tendon, wait a sec, here we go. I can't find your, oh, there we go.
John:All right. So we have semitendinosus, semimembranosus over here on this side. And then this is his biceps femoris. Those are the three main you can sit down though.
Isaiah:I totally pointed at the wrong
John:That's okay.
Isaiah:Connor, who's like this?
John:I was I was no. No. I had to palpate and find it, and then I found it. I had to find the the tendon on the lateral on What's
Isaiah:palpate mean?
John:Yeah. Know you do. Palpate means to touch. So I had I had to touch his the right spot for for me to talk about. But anyways, we see all the time on the Internet people talk about how Nordic hamstring curls are
Austin:the key to being a better athlete, know, free Gavlian, anyone can be world class, and
John:it's just how many Nordic hamstring curls you can do? That's a bunch of bullshit, alright. The hamstring functions at the knee to flex, basically it flexes your knee. So it flexes the leg, it moves it into this position, that is what it does. The only time you really are using knee flexion in an athletic movement is your repositioning.
John:So in running, for example, at least specifically when it comes to knee flexion, which is what you train when you do Nordic hamstring curls, yeah, it repositions the leg. So after you push off, Isaiah do the push off, know so what, do it on the bench here. So he's pushing, pushing, pushing, this is all triple extension, and then when he repositions off the ground, this is the hamstring working.
Austin:So I'm get this.
John:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So push pushes back behind him, now the hamstring's working, he repositions, then it extends like this, it's eccentrically working, then he strikes the ground again, now it's back to the triple extensors. How fast you run is determined by your extensors, not your flexors. I'm gonna say that again, how fast you run is determined by your extensors, not your flexors. So this muscle is a flexor, I.
John:E. It is not that important when it comes to repelling you. That said, the hamstring is what we call a multi joint muscle, meaning it crosses two joints. So Isaiah turn around again, That's my anatomy model. Stand up.
John:So we have the hamstring crosses, the tendon crosses the joint right here, and we have like I said, the two over wow your tendons are so stiff,
Isaiah:this is crazy. Oh
John:wow, look at that. Alright so Oh wow, alright, so we have two tendons here, and then we have one tendon here, like I said. So it also crosses his hip over here. Yeah, so straighten your leg completely. So if he straightens his leg completely and he drives his heel back into the bench, his hamstring is contracting because it crosses the hip joint up here.
John:So it also functions in extending the hip. That said, you don't You can sit down now. You don't
Isaiah:Sit. I'm gonna put the thumbnails, you grabbing my ass.
John:Yeah, you should do that.
Isaiah:In I'll get
John:Nordic hamstring curls, your pelvis is in a neutral position and you're strengthening it in extension. So you're basically doing an eccentric action, the knee is extending, the muscle is lengthening, and it's an eccentric action. I'm gonna say that again. When you do a Nordic hamstring curl, you're strengthening the down phase, that's the point of it. Even if you can lift on the up phase, that's not the point of the exercise, but even if you could do that, it's still strengthening the hamstring and knee flexion.
John:Which like I said, is when you, stand up again Isaiah, demonstrate repositioning the legs. So you're up, knee up position, you've got this knee up position and it's repositioning in front of the body so he pushes off, the hamstring's working here to reposition, pushing off, hamstring working in flexion to reposition, etcetera. That said, hamstring muscle. Go through exercises, your anecdotes guys, strengthening your hamstring, what you've noticed, what issues you've seen come up, what's your experience with, let's say specifically Nordic hamstring curls and knee flexion based exercises?
Isaiah:I've always trained the hamstrings specifically with mainly with RDLs, and leg curls and Nordic hamstring curls. And honestly, I haven't really I've always thought of it as I need to, like, train it, like, posterior chain equally as much as the as the quads. What's the posterior chain? Hamstrings, hips. That's what I see the posterior chain as.
Isaiah:So I try to like I try to do as much volume basically as I did of knee extension with my posterior chain.
John:Would you say that would you say that you load as much flexion, like knee flexion as extension? Since I've coached you, do do you think that I equate those or it's slightly off or what do think?
Isaiah:It feels pretty equal. Like, I I would say normally it's one day, one or two days of one or the other, you know, like alternate.
John:And you're saying specifically post
Isaiah:I think actually there's more there there's actually more hip extension because we do a pulls from the floor. So, like, think of, like, a RDL or a clean or a dead lift.
John:And then you're gonna get the posterior extension.
Isaiah:Normally but normally, if we're doing a lot of pulls from the floor, we'll do, like, hamstring curls or Nordic hamstring curls later in the workout. Here's another
John:good question for you. What is the hamstring's role in squatting? Oh, that's a hard one. Do you know the answer to this? Okay, affair.
John:You said are you CJ? Because CJ co contracts, meaning the muscle contracts on both sides, so it makes extending the knee more difficult, and CJ's every muscle contracts when he squats. He can be at like one fifty five and it's very difficult for him.
Isaiah:I'm actually not sure.
John:Alright, so do you want me to tell you?
Isaiah:Yeah. Do you
John:know the answer? No. Alright, so when you squat, the hamstring is functioning kind of interestingly on the Isaiah, you can stand up and be my model again. Stand. Which way do want me to?
John:To move you can back up a little bit. Stand behind the behind the thing. And I want you to face sideways. So as Isaiah squats down, remember it crosses the hip joint, so it's lengthening here, and we're actually shortening the hamstring here. So it can function in on go ahead, on the up phase.
John:So during the up phase, the hamstring is functioning at the hip, it's shortening, while it's lengthening here. So some people will say that it functions isometrically or kind of isometrically. I don't know if we could definitively say, you know, how the muscle is contracting in that scenario, because I don't think, I don't even know if it's possible for the FASC schools to half, you know what I mean, to like half contract. It's probably functioning kind of as a co contractor or a synergist, meaning it's probably assisting in some ways. A synergist is a muscle that's assisting in the primary movement, which in this case is squatting, but it's not necessarily a prime mover, right?
John:Like a single joint muscle, like the glutes in that scenario, those are gonna be functioning purely as an agonist in the extension. Or if we look at the vastus lateralis, medialis, and intermedius, those are single joint muscles crossing the knee during the up phase that are going to be functioning as agonist, meaning the prime mover. That is their sole role in that action. So probably as a synergist, that said, I guarantee during squats the activity of the hamstrings is fairly high. Probably at different points in the squat you're gonna see different activity levels.
John:I don't have that study off the top of my head, but if you're watching this and you did a quick Google Scholar research and looked at peer reviewed evidence from 2012 forward, let us know and maybe cite those research articles for us. But yeah. Okay. What is your experience, Austin, training the hamstring, whether it's sprints or maybe RDLs or whatever else? And what have you noticed in your one foot jumping?
Austin:Okay. So one foot specifically, I do notice improvements with RDLs and sprinting. Never have I noticed it with Nordics. I can't even do
John:a full Nordic. Neither can I? Neither can I, Zaya? Success leaves clues. If you can't do a Nordic, you'll have over a 40 inch vertical.
Austin:Yeah. Apparently.
John:Or 50. But I didn't
Austin:start loading my hamstrings like more than I don't know. I never really pushed my with doing RDLs or anything until about 2022. And that's when my vertical skyrocketed up two foot or off one foot,
John:not two foot. So you'd say that RDLs helped you?
Austin:With one foot.
John:With one foot.
Austin:Yeah. With with one foot specifically. I would not say
John:Why do think that is?
Austin:I mean, that's the one of the main loading muscles for one Right.
John:So if you look at what he's saying, Isaiah, stand up again. Stand, work it, twist. It's like a zoo.
Isaiah:I like being the model.
John:Alright, so if you're doing an RDL, this also works the hamstring, but it doesn't do it in knee flexion. What it does is it works the hip. So what's happening is at the knee, your hamstring is lengthened, right? And then as you extend the hip, right, and go, you just do reps of this. So on the way down, hamstring's lengthening, you'll feel a stretch in the hamstring, and then he comes back up.
John:So this is the concentric action, the muscle shortening, and it's shortening at the hip. So what's actually being trained here mostly is the hamstring at the hip. So it's lengthening on the down phase, as he comes down it's lengthening, and now the hamstring is functioning to concentrically shorten, so go head up. But we're also working the hip, the glute muscles. So we're working all of the butt your butt muscles, and we're also working the hamstring here.
John:Now when you jump off one foot, that's a similar action. So if he's planting on the ground, Isaiah, you can actually stand here. So as he comes to do a cross
Austin:Can play
Isaiah:on the bench?
John:If you can, yeah, I guess. Oh yeah, alright, so step over here. So as he plants in this position, what's happening is the hamstring is lengthened, right? We see it lengthened at the hip, it's lengthened at the knee, and then he's gonna roll down into that kind of mid support position, the knee bends, so the hamstring is functioning again as a synergist, probably in this position, and then he pushes off. So it functions interestingly in this because you don't actively pull, right?
John:You're not actively flexing when you're on the ground, it's more stabilizing the knee, it's doing something called co contracting. Again, this is where the muscle contracts on both sides, and this lets the quad function more optimally and also stabilizes the So the reason that oftentimes we see our one foot jumpers do really well when they get their RDL really high, is because their hip is getting a lot stronger, they're getting better eccentrically, or maybe, you know, functioning as a co contractor in one foot jumping, which stabilizes the knee joint, and then, you know, they see their performance go up. I also have seen this, like Austin said, I've noticed my RDL does decently correlate with one foot jumping. Go ahead.
Isaiah:I also have one anecdote, when my RDL was at its strongest, this was around like January, February, My power clean was also at a highest.
John:Why do you think that is? Do think it's your hamstrings that get stronger?
Isaiah:I don't think it was necessarily the hamstrings. I think it was just that motion that movement pattern, like that of hinging. Like, I was able to handle a lot of weight because when you're at the bottom of the at the end of the first pull, so, when you're here on the power clean right before you you do that, like, this position was really freaking strong. Yes. And I've used
John:to accelerate and that's almost like a weak weaker position. Right? You're like hinged over. Your low back has to be really strong. Yeah.
John:Your hips have to be really strong. So you have to be able to you have to have a stiff chassis to be able to put the force down.
Isaiah:Right? It honestly felt more like my my core and lower back was strong as hell, more so than my hamstrings being strong.
John:I don't think it's like your hamstring as much. It's that to be in that position in RDL, your back, your spine
Isaiah:That position. So rigid. It's like a it's a system. It's like that whole position itself was strong as hell.
John:Yeah. I think so too. And I think for one foot, it's related, right? It's that, but a more truncated smaller range of motion. So I do think it's super important.
John:Go ahead, Austin, what you were gonna say?
Austin:I I was gonna say, so would you say for two foot, hamstring work indirectly increases your vertical because it helps with the other lifts?
John:I think that's part of it. I think that I don't like to leave any stones unturned, and obviously, like I said, the hamstring is a multi joint muscle, so it crosses the hip. Even though it crosses the knee inflection, it still crosses the hip. So it's involved in extension. And I mean, I wouldn't even necessarily say a lot of the time train muscles, I train movements.
John:And so I'm not looking at like, muscles are used in these extra, like this specific movement, it's like what movements are going to train those muscles. Gotcha. And what movements are going to have higher levels of specificity, either neurally or in terms of the muscle and joint actions and tendon actions. That's how I select different exercises.
Isaiah:I have a question too. Is there, because earlier I was saying I try to have as much posterior chain work as like knee extension work. Does that play a role in health, like in staying healthy? Like, Like it be
John:if my knees hurt, is the reason my knees hurt because my hamstrings are weak? Yeah. No. I think it's a big misconception.
Isaiah:And is there anything to say about imbalances? Like,
John:you? So there is very little research when it comes to quote unquote imbalances. I think a lot of people are like, Oh, we see the hamstring to quad, like hamstring strength to quad strength ratios are totally different and we need to make these equal to have like a perfect I don't think that's necessarily validated, you know, I don't like to use the word that's proven, because that's not what you would say in science, nothing's proven, it's only highly supported. There is some support in research that you could look at that would say that you need these levels of balance in like extreme scenarios where you have an ACL tear or something like that. There does seem to be a relationship between the quad strength and hamstring strength, but I don't think that that's usually the driver of issues.
John:I would say there's far bigger determining factors of whether you're gonna get hurt or not, like if you're a female soccer player and you're on your menstrual cycle, your ligaments soften because of the hormones upregulating. A lot of the time you see ACL tears like crazy in women's soccer. Why do we see it way more in women's soccer than men's soccer? Because a lot of the time their ligaments soften and then they're at a higher risk. They're at a higher predisposition to have a tear in a non contact injury, meaning like on a cut or on defense.
John:The second thing is reacting to a movement. That's also a massive predictor of whether you're gonna tear your ACL or not, is how well you can anticipate someone else's movement in non contact injuries, right? The third, and what that does is it, every other risk factor goes crazy high, skyrockets, right? The coordination of which muscles are turning off and on and the quad being super active when the hamstring isn't, and then moving in an evalgus, and then all of a sudden you tear your ACL. Those risk factors go up like crazy when you add in a human reacting to a stimulus, right?
John:So reaction time is something that they're studying right now with ACL tears.
Isaiah:And then fatigue too, right? Fatigue is another variable that
John:Yeah, fatigue also plays a bigger role, right? You could have the strongest hamstring in the world, but if it's super fatigued, you're, I mean, maybe that plays a role in that coordination level. So even if in this perfect system where I put you on a leg extension or leg curl machine, you get exactly the same numbers on a single leg test, that might not even matter. You still could be at a really high risk of tearing your ACL. So I think that we have a lot of presumptions or assumptions about that and what it means, but I don't think it is a driver of, you know, whether or not you're gonna I don't think it's a predictor.
John:I don't think it's a good predictor of whether you're gonna tear your ACL or not. Think there's far stronger indicators of your risk for an ACL tear. Now that said, when it comes to tendons, pardon my language, can I say the F word? Freaking. Yeah.
John:Freaking ridiculous. Not true at all, I don't think there's any evidence that indicates that hamstring strength is a strong indicator for PFP, chondromalacia, or patella tendinopathy. I That's not do hamstring exercises. I do hamstring exercises because I, in sprinters, for example, I need to have the hamstring really strong as a co contractor, so that when your leg unfolds, your hamstring doesn't pull. I do it because I don't like to leave any stones unturned in two foot jumpers.
John:As a two foot jumper, when you kick out during the penultimate step, you might be able to get a stress shortening cycle that happens, and it functions as a co contractor, so the quad can work more optimally. It's not like muscles work in isolation. That's why I always say I train movements. So I still train it, there's a lot of things that I do in their programming. How many times a week would you guys say I load the hamstring heavy, heavy, heavy?
John:And then how many times how many times a a year do you think I really load, like, less than three or five reps in the hamstring?
Isaiah:Heavy heavy. I mean, we train them about three times a week. Two of those days are higher intensities relative to the third day, but it won't usually be super high intensity. Like, I would say the most common rep range is, like, six to 10. Mhmm.
Isaiah:And we go out, like, RPE, like, six probably. Yeah. Six to 10 reps or Six. Yeah. Six to 10 reps.
John:Sets would you say?
Isaiah:Like, two to four. Yeah. Two to four sets. And then I would say, like, once or twice a year Yeah. We focus on basically RDL ing really heavy or during eccentric psych eccentrically overloaded cycles, we'll hit Nordic hamstring curls really intensely, like, lower slowly as possible as and go to, like, RPE, like, nine, basically.
Isaiah:Mhmm. Sometimes actually, no. This last cycle, we did ice an isometric cycle where was it was hard a 100% effort each rep. So I would say, like, two to three months out of the year, we're training them hard. The rest of the time, it's essentially getting volume in.
Austin:I agree with that. I can't really refute that at all. So
John:You can't refute that?
Austin:No.
John:So what I would also say is the reason that I don't often load it more in jumpers is because of back issues. You could do more lying hamstring curl and stuff, and it would probably be fine because they're not sprinting as often. Now if I have an athlete that's sprinting more, I mean, you'd be tired
Isaiah:as hell by the end of the workout.
John:And I don't, I usually do put it at the end because it's an accessory exercise, it's not a main key movement that I would train. I think the reason it's so popular is because it challenges the assumption that it isn't important. The reason it's popular is because saying it's important challenges the common assumption that it's not. The common assumption is correct. It's not that important.
John:Like, it's just that if you if you say, it is, and you should do it, and that's why you have knee issues because you're not doing it. And that's why you have knee issues that like that that's just in reality, that's not true.
Isaiah:It sells well. And even with this, we're click baiting. We're click baiting with it. The thumbnail is probably gonna be like, is this muscle the secret of dumping higher? You can make it.
Isaiah:Now you're now you're finding out the answer. The
John:one picture where your hamstring looks like a
Isaiah:Oh, yeah. I'll re I'll I'll reuse that.
John:Yeah. That was a good that was a good thumbnail. Yeah. Alright. I feel like we've covered this pretty thoroughly.
John:You agree with that? Anything you
Austin:guys would like to add? No, no.
John:Alright, that said, go to teachbstrength.com and sign up for coaching. If you're watching this video, make sure you like, comment and subscribe. And if you're a bitch, don't sign up for coaching. Don't waste my time. Don't waste your time.
John:We want people that are obsessed with getting better and
Isaiah:We hate one and done. Potential. We hate one and done.
John:Don't yeah. I put so much effort emotionally into your training that if you don't care, it just kills It breaks it breaks our hearts. It breaks my soul.
Isaiah:Legitimately, yeah.
Austin:I have attachment and abandonment issues. So when I get to know you the first month and then you leave, it really upsets me.
John:I also have abandonment issues.
Isaiah:I don't, but it still sucks.
John:Alright. See you guys.
