Leg Curls vs. Glute Kickbacks

Watch someone performing leg curls and glute kickbacks sometime. The motion of each are similar and both exercises obviously work the lower body, so you might think these two are interchangeable. However, the pressing back motion of each exercise benefits your lower body muscles in different ways, as it targets two different muscle groups. It's still essential to do both to build and tone muscles in your legs.

Targeted Muscles

When you perform these exercises yourself, you'll immediately feel the difference between leg curls and glute kickbacks. When you press back to do a leg curl, your hamstrings are the muscles that do most of the work. When you're pressing back for a kickback, though, your gluteus maximus is the primary target of the workout.

Sculpting Effects

Leg curls and glute kickbacks are effective exercises that complement each other when toning, tightening and shaping your backside are the goals. When you do include them on leg day, you'll get the best sculpting effects if you perform them with low weights and high repetitions. Personal trainer Matt Siaperas of Hardbodies Gym recommends doing for each exercise 3 sets of 15 reps to achieve the toned results you're looking for.

Variations

Being able to modify exercises helps when it comes to fighting workout boredom or overcoming an exercise plateau. Both leg curls and glute kickbacks can be performed in a variety of ways, with or without resistance. You can do glute kickbacks with cable machines or on specialized glute machines and you can even do them kneeling on all fours without any weight at all. Leg curls can also be done using cable machines and specialty machines that position you to perform them while sitting, lying down or standing. You can even utilize an exercise ball to do leg curls without using weights as resistance.

Lower Body Training

Working your glutes on the same day as your hamstrings isn't against any training rules or philosophies. Incorporating glute kickbacks with leg curls into your lower body workout is the logical way to get an effective, balanced leg workout. For example, start at the top with the glute kickbacks and then move on to leg curls, leg extensions, and hip adductors and abductors. Finish off with some calf raises.

References

• The Prevention Get Thin, Get Young Plan; Selene Yeager and Bridget Doherty
• ExRx.net: Leg Curls
• ExRx.net: Cable Standing Hip Extension
• ExRx.net: Lever Kneeling Hip Extension
• Stack: Leg Curl
• ShapeFit.com: Sculpting Exercises
• Matt Siaperas; Personal Trainer, Hardbodies Gym, Blackfoot, Idaho