Tight Hamstrings? Effective Stretches and 6 Important Tips for Hamstring Flexibility

Nobody really cares about tight hamstrings.

Until you realize they’re stopping you from doing things you need or want to do. And it’s not even about being as flexible as a gymnast or a dancer, it’s simply that feeling stiff and restricted is no fun! Tightness down the back of your legs is common issue, whether from sitting too long, an old injury, or even that’s it just the way it’s always been for you.

But don’t lose hope! We have the answers to help you finally overcome this challenge.

The six steps we talk about below focus on gentle, consistent stretching, addressing your body’s unique needs, and incorporates dynamic movements. Those are the real keys to moving and feeling better. It’s time to take action and reclaim your freedom of movement.

Not because you really care about touching your toes. But maybe you’ve tried stretching before, tried making your hamstrings work like they’re “supposed to.”

And it just hasn’t worked.

Whatever the cause, the good news is that you can improve your hamstring flexibility, even if nothing has worked before.Ready to get started? Let’s dive into these effective techniques and make a real change together.

Why Your Hamstrings Are Tight (And What You Can Do About It)

First of all, are your hamstrings really the problem?

This may seem a funny thing to say, but just because you feel tight down the back of your legs doesn’t necessarily mean your hamstrings are to blame for your limited range of motion. There can be quite a few structures in your “posterior chain” that are affecting your movement (especially if you have a job that requires you to sit or drive for long periods of time).

• For example, your calves (gastrocnemius muscles) cross the knee joint, so restrictions there can make keeping your knees straight harder than it should be.
• Also, the connections from your deep hip muscles (glutes, piriformis, gemelli, etc.) can affect the ease in which your pelvis tilts, thus affecting how you bend forward at the hip.
• Then there’s joint restrictions at your lower back and pelvis, which can cause increased tension throughout your hips and legs. With these, people often feel much more freedom in their motion after doing exercises that limber up the spine (without stretching their legs much at all).
• Finally, nerves (sciatic) travel from your low back all the way to your feet and can be sensitive to stretch.

Or it could be a combination of all of the above, which is definitely common with flexibility issues.

So, yes your hamstrings may be tight, but they are usually just one small part of the overall problem of your whole body mobility. Our method takes this into account and isn’t just stretches for that singular bodypart, it’s a full body plan of attack to get you moving better the right way.

6 Proven Hamstring Flexibility Tips to Release Your Tight Legs

There are a lot of things you could do to begin stretching out your hamstrings for greater flexibility, but here are 6 tips to improve your movement and flexibility now, and get rid of that “ropes in the back of the legs” feeling:

1. Never Force a Stretch: Stay Safe and Effective

Nobody likes getting injured from stretching! Never force a stretch—stay safe and get better results by being gentle and patient with your body. You’ve heard this advice before (we’re sure) and probably ignored it.

You may have thought, “If I just work on it harder and push through, my flexibility will improve.” But the trouble with this philosophy is that when you’re working on flexibility, your muscles (and nerves) aren’t passive structures.

So, stretching too forcefully or too quickly will activate a “stretch reflex,” which increases muscle tension and resists the stretch.

Don’t fight yourself on this one! Here’s what you can try instead:

1. Pick a stretch, and rock slowly back and forth into the stretch several times.
2. Focus on having an even, steady breath.
3. Every few repetitions, hold the stretch for a bit and see where you’re at.

After a 30 seconds or so, you’ll likely find yourself further into the stretch with much less strain than before. Easy, right?

2. Start With Bent Knees For Better Stretching Results

Yup, go ahead, it’s fine.

Bending forward with straight legs is great if you can do it, but otherwise it’s not the best choice if you’re having trouble moving even a few inches forward in the straight leg stretch position. So, bend your knees and take the slack off the calves and hamstring attachments at your knees.

Focus instead on maintaining a flat or slightly arched back, and keep your chest up and hinge forward at your hips.

3. Relax Your Hamstrings By Targeting Other Areas First

As we mentioned earlier, the source of your flexibility issues could be the result of the other areas of your body, rather than just your hamstrings.

Before you do your usual hamstring work, loosen up your body with back flexibility exercises, hip mobility stretches, and calf stretches–you’ll probably notice that you have freer motion right away!

4. Shorten Static Stretches For Maximum Benefit

The results of many flexibility research studies have consistently shown minimal increased benefits for holding a position longer than 15 – 30 seconds. This is why we recommend doing shorter holds with more repetitions (especially if you’re just starting out with flexibility work).

Longer holds may be helpful if you’re working on a specific issue (and after you’ve already spending some time working on shorter holds), but don’t spend minutes in a position in an attempt to improve especially when you are just starting out.

Holding for a longer period of time can be useful in certain situations, but that takes experience and practice to figure out if that’s best for you.

5. Dynamic Movements: The Key to Lasting Flexibility

Have you ever noticed that your flexibility gains from an earlier training session seem to disappear once you try to work on the position again? This can be frustrating, and this phenomenon is often caused by a lack of increased movement in this new range of motion.

What does that mean? Use it or lose it, of course!

The retention of range of motion requires active use in the new range, otherwise your body reverts back to your old range of motion in that position. Essentially, you need to re-educate your body to move in this new range. Dynamic exercises such as deep squatting, leg swings, full range jumping, and kicking drills work very well.

With that in mind though, keep the intensity low and well within your limits, and don’t do prolonged stretching before any heavy exercise.

6. Master One Flexibility Technique At A Time

The five tips listed above are the best general tips we have to improve your flexibility right now. There are quite a few other methods you can try as well:

• Foam rollers
• Balls
• Bands
• Tack and stretch (or any other “patented” technique)

There’s nothing wrong with trying any of these methods, and you’ve probably done them already. But beware of trying everything at once. If you try out too many methods at once, you won’t know which method in particular works best for you, or worse, you won’t know which thing could possibly set you back.

Whatever method you choose – I’d highly suggest ours! – make sure to keep the five tips in mind and apply those every time. Stick with it for at least a couple of weeks before you changing anything to see how it affects you. You need some time and practice to figure it out!

Step-by-Step Guide to Transform Your Hamstrings: Essential Stretches to Improve Mobility

Armed with the 6 tips above, you’re well prepared to practice some essential hamstring stretches without worrying about injuring yourself or overdoing it.

The following video shows fundamental hamstring stretches that just require an elevated surface—a bench, chair, table, or anything sturdy enough to put your foot on. Just as described above, ease into the stretches with smooth rhythmic movements into and out of the stretch, followed by a short holding period.

I show a few variations in the short video, but just choose one that you are comfortable with at first, then feel free to play around with the techniques to see what works best for you!

If standing up while practicing these movements places too much strain on your hamstrings, the following video shows you seated variations with various modifications you can use. The key is finding what is most comfortable for you, and allows you to get the best movement in this area.

As you can see, improving hamstring flexibility is less about sitting in boring, painful stretches, and more about getting some gentle movement in whatever ranges are good for you.

 

Make Faster Progress with a Proven Method

It’s a great feeling when you start noticing that your hamstrings are getting looser.

If tightness is getting in your way or causing you pain, that feeling probably can’t come fast enough. The tips above, along with the exercises shown, will help your hamstrings get looser more quickly, without the fear of injury that often accompanies hamstring stretches.

But, as we talked about at the start of this article, it’s much more likely that you’ll feel better faster working on your whole body and not just isolating your hamstrings. The techniques and mindset we’ve discussed here are all part and parcel of the GMB Method and we’ve distilled that all into our flagship program.

Our clients have used Elements to get flexible faster along with their full body mobility and strength at the same time.

Natasha used Elements to reclaim the flexibility she needed after years of training. 👇