The hamstrings are three muscles that form the back of the thigh. They flex the knee and extend the hip and are an essential muscle group for overall strength and power.

You can strengthen your hamstrings in a variety of ways — like doing squats, lunges, and deadlifts. However, there's no doubt you'll get even better results with machine exercises. The following gym machine exercises can help you build strong hamstrings.

Here's a look at six such exercises:

The lying leg curl is an excellent exercise for strengthening the hamstrings.

Seated leg curls are a great way to strengthen the hamstrings. They can be done with or without ankle weights, which makes it easy to change the degree of difficulty.

Here’s how you do this exercise:

This machine helps to strengthen the hamstrings. Here's how the standing leg curl is done:

The smith machine deadlift is a great exercise for beginners and advanced trainers alike.

While the classic deadlift is great by itself, the smith machine deadlift adds a layer of security and stability to an exercise that may seem risky and unnecessarily harmful to the lower back.

To do a Smith machine stiff-leg deadlift:

While doing this exercise, keep your arms straight at all times so that they don't get hurt by putting too much pressure on them or getting pulled back by the weight of the barbell. Also, try not to lean forward too much, as that will put unnecessary stress on the lower back. That could lead to injury if done incorrectly for extended periods.

The Smith machine Romanian deadlift is a great exercise to target the hamstrings, glutes, and lower back.

Leg presses are a great exercise for the hamstrings, glutes, and quadriceps. The leg press is beneficial for both men and women, as it can help develop stronger muscles in the lower body.

Here's how to do a seated leg press:

With the aforementioned exercises, you can build stronger and healthier hamstrings. You can also perform them as part of a leg workout, or do them on your own.

Start with one exercise per leg, and gradually increase the number of sets till you reach three sets per leg. Train hard, and balance these workouts with other variations. Soon, you'll be sporting a pretty hefty set of hamstrings.

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