Split Squats

Muscles worked

The muscles under tension are the hamstrings, which extend the hip and bend the knee, frequently at both joints in the same repetition.

A stretch loads them at the far end of the range they normally work in, so the position you hold is itself the resistance.

Other muscle groups are involved too: the calves control the ankle and hold the heel position; the glutes finish hip extension; the quadriceps straighten the knee and take load on the descent.

Every exercise for:HamstringsCalvesGlutesQuadriceps

How this movement works

Force goes away from the body: the muscles press against the floor, a wall or your own opposite limb rather than drawing anything in. There is no weight to add, so the position you can reach and keep is the whole variable.

It is filed under stretching, so the target is range of motion rather than force — a position you can settle into and breathe in, held long enough for the tissue to give.

What you need

These train the hamstrings too, using equipment this one does not:

• Standing Leg Curlmachine
• Stiff-Legged Barbell Deadliftbarbell
• Stiff-Legged Dumbbell Deadliftdumbbell
• 90/90 Hamstringbody only
• Alternating Hang Cleankettlebell

Difficulty

Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.

Of the 86 hamstrings exercises in this database, 35 are listed at intermediate level.