Isolation

Seated leg curl

Seated puts the hamstring under more stretch than lying, which is a reason to prefer it where there is a choice.

Coming to the App Store

The movement pages are part of MacroChef Plus

How the lift is performed, what it trains, and where it belongs in a split — for all 67 movements. One subscription covers the training side and the whole recipe library.

How Plus works

Seated leg curl, working end — Working end

Trains

Hamstrings

Programmed at

3 × 10-15

Appears in

Lower B, Legs

It is in 3 of the six splits, which is as good a signal as any that it earns its place. See which one matches your week.

The muscle itself

The three hamstrings seen from behind: biceps femoris on the outside, semitendinosus and semimembranosus on the inside, all starting at the sitting bone. — All three cross the hip AND the knee, which is why a curl and a hinge train them differently.

Swap it for

Not lesser versions. What to do when the rack is busy, the gym has no cable station, or a joint objects to the first one.

Lying leg curlHamstrings

Everything else that trains this pattern

Barbell curlBiceps
Cable curlBiceps
Cable lateral raiseSide delts
Cable rope curlBiceps, Brachialis, Forearms
Dumbbell curlBiceps
Dumbbell overhead extensionTriceps
Face pullRear delts, Mid back, Rotator cuff
Hammer curlBiceps, Brachialis, Forearms
Lateral raiseSide delts
Leg curlHamstrings
Leg extensionQuads
Nordic curlHamstrings
Overhead rope extensionTriceps
Reverse flyRear delts, Mid back
Seated calf raiseCalves
Sissy squatQuads
Skull crusherTriceps
Standing calf raiseCalves
Triceps pushdownTriceps

Training is the easy half

You will not build anything on the wrong number of calories, and most people are eating a long way under the protein they think they are. Get your daily number, then have the week built to it — every recipe on the site is costed from gram weights, so the figures are checkable rather than rounded up to sound better.

This is not a form tutorial. There is no technique walkthrough here and no claim about the one correct way to move — a page cannot watch you lift. What it gives you is what the movement trains, how much of it to do, and what to do instead when the equipment is taken. If a movement is new to you, get someone qualified to watch your first few sessions. If you are under 18, pregnant, or managing an injury or medical condition, talk to someone qualified rather than a website.