Sliding leg curl
Heels on sliders with your hips held up, sliding your legs out long and dragging them back in. Hamstring work on a smooth floor with nothing else.
TrainsHamstrings
NeedsBodyweight
The movement
2 stages
Heels under the knees
01 Heels under the knees
Drag your heels in until your feet sit under your knees, hips still high.
02 Legs long
Slide your heels away until your legs are almost straight, hips off the floor.
How to do it
Setup
- Lie on your back on a smooth floor with a folded towel or a furniture slider under each heel.
- Bend your knees so your feet sit under them, arms flat at your sides.
- Press your heels down and lift your hips until your shoulders, hips and knees line up.
Execution
- Slide both heels away from you until your legs are almost straight.
- Keep your hips off the floor the whole time, so the movement happens at the knees.
- Drag your heels back under your knees, pushing your hips up as they come.
BreathingBreathe in as you slide out and out as you drag your heels back in.
Getting it right
Form cues
- Hips stay lifted from the first rep to the last.
- Slide out until your legs are almost straight, then stop.
- Drag the heels in, do not lift them and replace them.
Common mistakes
- Letting the hips drop as the legs slide out, which hands the work to the floor.
- Sliding out further than you can pull back, so the return rep becomes a scramble.
- Working on carpet, where the heels grip and the exercise turns into a bridge.
Worth knowing
- Hamstring cramp is the common surprise here, especially on the first session. Start with one set of six and stop the set when the cramping starts rather than pushing through it.
General guidance, not medical advice. See how Setkit works.
Notes
Hamstrings do two jobs, and most home training only covers one of them. Deadlifts and romanian deadlifts train the hip end, where the hamstrings extend the hip. The sliding leg curl trains the knee end, where they bend the knee, and it does it with a bridge held the whole time so the hip end is working too.
The floor is the resistance. Your heels have to drag your bodyweight back under your knees against friction, and how hard that is depends on the surface and the slider. Hardwood with a folded towel is easy, tile with a plastic slider is harder, and carpet does not work at all. Two paper plates on laminate is the usual cheap answer.
Progress it by slowing the slide out and by going further before you turn around. When both legs together stop being hard, take one foot off the floor and curl on a single leg, which roughly doubles the load with no equipment change. That single-leg version is also the sensible route toward the nordic curl negative.
If your hamstrings cramp before they fatigue, the set is telling you the position is too long for now. Shorten the slide, keep the hips a little higher, and build the range over a few weeks.