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Your flexibility is inversely related to how injury-prone you are. The more flexible you are, the less likely you are to accidentally injure yourself during training. This is true of major injuries, but it is also true of minor injuries that leave you stiff and sore for 3-4 days (when you should be bouncing back after 1 day of rest, ideally). Flexibility ...

The more flexible you are doesnt always mean you are less likely to injure yourself... sometimes being too flexible is a detriment and your strength is lacking. If you are extremely flexible but lack the strength to maintain certain exercises you are equally as prone to injury as someone who is inflexible. The key is determining where your body lacks ...

Body shape has a lot to do with it. I've got really long legs and short arms, so it would take a huge amount of angle for me to be able to touch my toes (which I can't). My 80 year old grandmother always used to be able to (and might still), but her legs are very short compared to her arms... She can do it without stretching anything at all, whereas for ...

There are actually quite a few studies that address this question. If you search on google scholar for musculoskeletal fitness and health, you'll find a lot of good reading. In a summation of them, there are basically three components to musculoskeletal fitness, which are strength (ability to perform work), endurance (how long you can do said work) and ...

Here is another 'strange' person for you. I have been slender all of my life and I still am. However, I have never really been able to touch my toes, and one gym teacher in middle school gave me an "F" in gym one semester because I couldn't - even after lots of stretching exercises, the best I could do was BARELY touch the floor with my middle fingers. ...

What about doing a Good Morning. Start Position: End Position:

Freakyuser, It might not be your hamstring muscle. If you can touch the floor with your knuckles without bending the knees, then it is most likely not your hamstring. Also, this is beyond average (most people can't do this). You might want to check and see if your lumbar spine is the problem of your stiffness. However, you can read the Functional ...

In my weightlifing circles, stiff-legged deadlifts have always been considered THE hamstring exercise. My buddies have used the name Romanian deadlifts interchangably with stiff-legged deadlifts, but after doing some Googling for references, I see that these names can be differentiated. If you use form like in the first link, you'll want to be standing on ...

All existing answers provide good hamstrings exercises, but none of them really isolate the hamstrings. (It is rather difficult to get both "free weights" and "isolation" in one exercise as @Moz pointed out) If "isolation" is more important, just go with the leg curl machine. If you don't want to use machines, you can use cables to get a good compromise ...

No need to look any further than Squats.....many consider this exercise the King of all exercises. Since your muscles don't work in isolation, you shouldn't train them in isolation. Dumbbell, barbell, body weight and 100 other variations...keep it simple and focus on technique. Free weights always provide more overall benefit than machines ever will.

Hamstring strengthening is very important to prevent knee injuries in addition to improve your performance, especially in sports that require lots of kicking, jumping, cutting, sprinting, acceleration and deceleration. If you can find a stability ball, then you can try these exercises: Stability Ball Hamstring Curl Stability Ball Single Leg Hamstring ...

It appears you are flexible enough and your hamstrings don't need additional stretching. I would focus on strengthening your hamstrings instead of stretching. Add deadlifts or other hamstring exercises you prefer to your fitness routine at the gym. Too much flexibility can be a cause of injury.

So they're just sore? Intervals hurt - that's the point - you want to be a bit sore because that's your body getting stronger. Stretching's probably not going to help much. The intervals are doing a small amount of damage to your body so that it can then repair itself and a bit more and become stronger. You need to rest and eat sufficient protein to help ...

I can touch my toes. I can put the palm of my hands on the floor even with my knees straight if I want to. I guess it's simply how you're built, because I haven't stretched in months and I can do it. I have long legs, but I s'pose my arms must be long too haha! You also have to give me the fact that I'm young- around 16- and female. Women are often more ...

On top of compound exercises like deadlifts (particularly the stiff-legged variety, if you're flexible enough) and squats (if you're flexible enough to do them right), glute-ham raises are an excellent way to target the hamstrings. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlalgTN1dgA