Biceps Femoris Exercises

The biceps femoris is a large muscle located on the back of the thigh. Its primary mechanism is hip extension and knee flexion. The muscle contains a high ratio of fast to slow twitch muscle fiber types, which makes it ideal for explosive movements. Because of this, the muscle is integral to certain athletic feats like running and jumping.

Do these exercises to gain additional strength in your biceps femoris.

1. Deadlift: The deadlift is one of the best exercises for building mass in the biceps femoris muscle. While the vanilla deadlift is excellent for working the muscle, you can hit it even harder with stiff- or straight-legged deadlifts. Both of these will deactivate the quads and make sure the hamstrings are hit exceptionally hard. When doing deadlifts make sure there is little to no lumbar rounding, less you damage your back.

2. Squat: The back squat is another excellent exercise for increasing the strength of your biceps femoris. The exercise is similar in muscle activation to the deadlift, although it places additional stress on the leg muscles. Depending on where you place the bar, the biceps femoris can be more or less activated. I recommend using a low bar position in order to maximize hip flexion during the eccentric portion of the movement and therefore hip extension during the concentric phase.

When performing the squat, make sure that you start off with a comfortable weight so that you do not cause damage to your knees. A problem a lot of newbies have with the squat is that they perform a hula motion when coming out of the hole. The best way to correct this is to lower the weight and do higher reps for a couple weeks so that your stabilizers can be worked more.

3. Good morning: This is one of my favorite exercises for building mass in the hamstrings and lower back. Due to the vulnerability of the back, I suggest mastering the squat and deadlift before moving on to the good morning. You’ll be doing significantly less weight with this exercise, but it hits the biceps femoris extremely hard. As always, make sure your back is straight and that there is no lumbar rounding.

4. Leg Curls: This exercise is useful for isolating the hamstrings and building up both heads of the biceps femoris. The problem with the other three exercises is that the short head of the muscle is not activated during hip extension, which means it is only built up when you actively bring your foot toward your butt. There are only a few exercises that allow you to do this with resistance. The leg curl is one of them.

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