What you'll gain

• Isolates knee flexion so the hamstrings work without help from the hips.

• Machine support makes it easy to teach and easy to progress in small steps.

• Balances quad dominant work in a lower body program.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. 1

   Set the ankle pad so it rests just above your heels and adjust the machine to your height.

2. 2

   Lie face down with your torso flat and your knees at the edge of the bench.

3. 3

   Position your feet under the pad and grip the handles.

4. 4

   Brace your abs and press your hips into the bench.

5. 5

   Curl your heels toward your glutes by contracting the hamstrings.

6. 6

   Pause at the top, then lower slowly until the knees are almost straight.

Common Mistakes

• Lifting the hips off the pad, which adds hip flexion and disguises a short range.

• Snapping the legs back down, which discards the eccentric part of the rep.

• Setting the ankle pad on the calf, which shifts pressure and limits knee flexion.

• Loading heavy enough that the lower back arches on every rep.

About This Exercise

The lying leg curl puts you face down on a machine with the ankle pad set just above the heels and the hips resting flat, so the only joint action is knee flexion. With the hip close to neutral the hamstrings work across the knee without the added hip flexion of the seated version, and the prone position leaves the hamstrings freer to travel through their range. The calves assist at the ankle. Stopping just short of full extension at the bottom keeps the load on the muscle rather than parking it on the knee joint. In a library this is the standard machine hamstring clip that almost every commercial gym program references. It fits leg day templates, posterior chain accessory blocks, and beginner machine circuits inside app-delivered training plans.

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