Exercises for Your Hamstring & Pelvis

You may have heard of professional athletes or a friends who pulled their hamstrings or have complained about hip pain. Since these muscle groups are prone to injury if they're not conditioned properly, train them together to move in coordination with other muscle groups rather than in isolation like in bodybuilding. Most hamstrings and pelvic exercises can be performed with your own body weight with little or no equipment.

  1. Functional Anatomy

    • Although traditional anatomy textbooks describe hamstrings and hip movements as separate entities, they rely on each other to perform a variety of movement patterns with other muscle groups, such as your quadriceps and back. Because they share many nerves and connective tissues, they are part of a myofascial meridian -- similar to acupuncture meridians -- that makes up the superficial back line, which extends from the bottom of your feet, through your hamstrings, hips and back, and into the back and base of your skull. Its function is to maintain your posture when you're standing in various positions and to prevent your body from excessive flexion during certain movements. If one of these muscle groups doesn't have adequate mobility or stability, it can affect the other muscles' movement quality, according to physical therapist Gray Cook. For example, if the hips lack mobility, your knees and lower back compensate by giving up their stability to gain more mobility, which can increase your risk of injury. Therefore, exercises for your hamstrings and pelvis must incorporate them together.

    Basic Movements and Strength

    • Rather than working your hamstrings and pelvis separately, perform exercises that work both groups together. Cook suggests that you perform the deep squat, step-up and lunge because these are the basic lower-body positions and movement patterns in many field and court sports, such as basketball and tennis. Once you're able to perform them well with your own body weight, increase the resistance by adding a barbell, dumbbell or kettlebell to these exercises. Perform these exercises separately, or do them consecutively like circuit training to improve endurance.

    Emphasize the "Brakes"

    • Your hamstrings function like brakes to control the rate of deceleration when you slow down from a run or lower yourself to the ground. To minimize your risk of injuries and improve strength and power, focus on the eccentric phase of the movement, which is the weight-lowering phase of the exercise, because it can help reduce your risk of injuries. For example, when you perform a barbell squat, lower your body at a rate of three to four seconds and stand straight up at a rate of one or two seconds. In two studies published in "Journal of Athletic Training" and "International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy," subjects who are recovering from a knee, hamstring, or hip injury had significant reduction in pain and increased function of their lower extremities after eccentric strength training of the hips.

    Power Up

    • Once you're familiar with the basic strength exercises, juice up your exercise intensity by adding speed to your workout. Lower-body plyometric training involves performing movement patterns with quick and powerful repetitions, which are necessary for some sports and activities, such as volleyball and gymnasts. These movement patterns require you to eccentrically load the hips and hamstrings together to generate force before you produce force explosively. Think of your body as a coiled spring. To jump high, you must first bend your knees and hips together before you jump. Sample plyometric exercises include lateral jumps, power lunges, power step-ups and stair sprinting.