Here is my dilemma.
My knees are giving me a bit of trouble, so much so that even walking on a treadmill is now out of the question (unless I want to have knee pain for days).
I was informally discussing this quandry with a gym acquaintance of mine who happens to be a physical therapist. He was going through some possible causes of the knee discomfort that I am feeling, and the most likely cause of my knee pain is the difference in strength between my quads and hams.
My quads are very strong, and they get a thorough workout on leg day. However, I really only train hamstrings as an afterthought. I typically will do three or so sets of seated leg curls at the end of my leg workout and call it a day. My hams look decent enough, so I never really worried about it, but now it appears as though I have to correct this imbalance.
All the gym has is a seated leg curl machine, and since this is a "fitness oriented establishment" none of the machines have any impressive weights on the rack. The only movement that I know to do other than these seated leg curls would be stiff leg dead lifts. I am generally reluctant to do this movement because I train my entire leg on the same day, and I don't know how wise it would be to do squats and deadlifts during the same workout. I also tend to enjoy regular deadlifts, and do those on back day (which is a very taxing workout, and I don't want to add hams in on that day).
So what do the gurus here at AM think? Do you guys know of any bodyweight exercises or dumbbell movements that I can incorporate to get these hams up to speed?
Any and all advice is appreciated.
My knees are giving me a bit of trouble, so much so that even walking on a treadmill is now out of the question (unless I want to have knee pain for days).
I was informally discussing this quandry with a gym acquaintance of mine who happens to be a physical therapist. He was going through some possible causes of the knee discomfort that I am feeling, and the most likely cause of my knee pain is the difference in strength between my quads and hams.
My quads are very strong, and they get a thorough workout on leg day. However, I really only train hamstrings as an afterthought. I typically will do three or so sets of seated leg curls at the end of my leg workout and call it a day. My hams look decent enough, so I never really worried about it, but now it appears as though I have to correct this imbalance.
All the gym has is a seated leg curl machine, and since this is a "fitness oriented establishment" none of the machines have any impressive weights on the rack. The only movement that I know to do other than these seated leg curls would be stiff leg dead lifts. I am generally reluctant to do this movement because I train my entire leg on the same day, and I don't know how wise it would be to do squats and deadlifts during the same workout. I also tend to enjoy regular deadlifts, and do those on back day (which is a very taxing workout, and I don't want to add hams in on that day).
So what do the gurus here at AM think? Do you guys know of any bodyweight exercises or dumbbell movements that I can incorporate to get these hams up to speed?
Any and all advice is appreciated.