The lying leg curl has you face down curling the pad toward your glutes with your hips extended, which keeps the hamstrings at a relatively short length through the whole set. That hip position is the one thing that separates it from the seated version, and it is why the two feel noticeably different despite being the same knee movement.
How to do it
- Hips stay down on the pad, and the pad sits just above the heels.
- Point the toes away or pull them up — both are fine, but pick one and keep it.
Common mistakes
- Arching the lower back as the set gets hard.
What it trains
- Hamstrings
- bend the knee to drive the heels toward the glutes — the prime mover
- Calves
- assist at the knee, and take more of it if you let your toes point away
- Glutes
- hold the hips down against the pad so the curl does not turn into a hip lift
Variations and alternatives
Common questions
Why do my hips lift off the pad at the top?
Because the weight is past what your hamstrings can curl, so your hips rise to shorten the lever. Drop the load, squeeze your glutes to pin your hips down, and stop the rep at the point where they want to come up.
Should I point my toes or pull them toward my shins?
Toes pulled toward your shins keeps the calves out of it and leaves more of the work on the hamstrings. Pointing the toes lets the calf help across the knee, which makes the set easier without making it better.
Lying or seated leg curl — which should I pick?
Seated if you only do one, because the hip flexion holds the hamstrings at a longer length under load, which looks better for growth. The lying version is still a good movement and they train the same muscle, so running both is fine.
How do I know when to add weight on a curl?
When you can hit the top of your rep range on your heaviest set with your hips staying flat on the pad. Set that range in StackUp and it will mark the exercise up and suggest the next weight for you rather than you guessing week to week.
In StackUp. Logged as weight and reps per set, and your heaviest working set decides whether the weight goes up next time. Get the app.
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