Questions about training your hamstrings/hip region

I was reading this Sunday afternoon and figured I would just post some of my notes and thoughts about this topic.  This is in no certain order but I'm sure the knowledge will be useful if your a performance coach or athlete looking to train better.

I've been training an AAU basketball team this past month and as usually most of the boys lack ankle dorsi-flexion and proper eversion/inversion which I have addressed as part of their specific warm-ups.  The topic today isn't on ankles but I'll be sure to go back to this topic since its a concern especially with majority of my ballers.  Chronic ankle sprains and lack of proper hamstring/hip training just to name a few issues have been addressed with group.  Ok back to hamstring/hip training.

Hamstring group made simple

-You have 2 big hamstring muscles semitendinosus and semimembranosus that start at the bottom of the butt on the ischial tuberosity and go to the inside of knee

-You also this gracilis muscle starts between your legs and also goes straight down to medial side or inside of knee

-Another muscle the sartorius starts by iliac spine or kinda in middle of hip anterior part and wraps around leg and inserts into medial tibia

Summarize the above-You have 2 bigger muscles that stay on inside back of leg and stop by inside of knee.  Next you got this wrap around muscle starts middle of hip anterior part and wraps around and goes to inside of knee. The last one I mentioned was this gracilis muscle starts between your legs pubic area and you have one on rt. leg and one on left leg.  Lets keep going.

-Last two I'm gonna mentioned are short and long head of bicep femoris or hamstring guys.  Long head starts by bottom of butt or ischial tuberosity and short head starts about half way down leg on femur.  Both these guys go to outside knee by the lateral condyle of tibia or leg.    So to put it simple you got these bicep femoris muscles that go to outside of knee while the group mentioned above goes toward inside of knee. 

NOW TO TRAINING THESE GUYS

In most cases the most important role these muscles have is in braking or slowing your body down.  I already pointed out they cross the knee so don't you think you might want to train them in different planes or directions and not just on those leg machines (machines are good thou don't get me wrong) ?  As you can see they cross the knee and hip and not mentioned is they need to be trained in various velocities once range of motion and strength and good.

I hope you have learned something as I reviewed the posterior chain and will be sure to post more notes in the coming weeks on such topics.  Happy hamstring training athletes.

Coach B Meyer