During pregnancy, your body goes through changes to support your growing baby — and your posture shifts to accommodate this new load. As your belly grows, your centre of gravity moves forward, creating an anterior pelvic tilt (where the pelvis tips forward). This often leads to:

• Lengthened, inhibited hamstrings that lose their ability to stabilise the pelvis.
• Tight hip flexors and quads that dominate movement patterns.
• Weakened glutes and posterior-chain underuse.

Although the hamstrings might feel tight, they’re often “tight-but-weak” — stretched beyond their optimal length and unable to generate proper tension or support.

Postpartum, this can show up as:

• Lower-back tension
• Hamstring cramping or overuse
• Hip and pelvic instability
• Reduced power in running, lifting, or impact movements

In short: during pregnancy and early postpartum, the hamstrings lose both length–tension balance and neuromuscular control. Rebuilding that connection is key to restoring strength and stability from the ground up.

The Benefits of Strong Hamstrings (and Why They Matter Postpartum)

Your hamstrings do far more than extend the hip — they’re a key player in pelvic stability, posture, and pressure management. During pregnancy and postpartum, the relationship between your pelvis, core, and posterior chain changes dramatically. The hamstrings often become under-recruited as the pelvis shifts into an anterior tilt, or over-tight as they try to compensate for lost stability elsewhere. Rebuilding their strength and coordination helps restore balance across your entire system.

When your hamstrings are strong and well-coordinated, they:

• Anchor the pelvis — creating balance between the front and back of the body so your pelvis stays centred, not tipped forward or tucked under.
• Stabilise the sacrum and SI joint — working with the glutes, adductors, and deep core to maintain pelvic alignment and reduce shearing forces that can cause discomfort.
• Reduce back and hip tension — by evenly distributing load through the posterior chain instead of allowing the lower back to overwork.
• Enhance running and impact control — providing deceleration strength for landing, stride stability, and hip drive during propulsion.
• Support deep core function — by helping to maintain optimal pelvic position, which allows the diaphragm and pelvic floor to coordinate more efficiently with each breath.

In daily life, this translates to smoother, more powerful movement. Whether you’re hinging to pick up your baby, pushing a stroller uphill, or rebuilding confidence in running and lifting.

Phase 1: CONTROL — Restore Tension and Lengthened Strength

This phase is all about reconnecting to your hamstrings — not just strengthening them, but retraining them to coordinate with your glutes, adductors, and deep core again.

After pregnancy, your hamstrings can often feel “tight,” yet unable to generate true tension or stability. Before you add heavy load or dynamic power, you need to re-establish their ability to contract, lengthen, and stabilise the pelvis through controlled, low-load movement.

The goal in this phase is quality over quantity — slowing things down to:

• Rebuild neuromuscular control and awareness through the posterior chain.
• Restore the length–tension relationship of the hamstrings so they can support the pelvis efficiently.
• Improve coordination with breath and core pressure to prevent the low-back from taking over.

By learning to control movement through these longer lever, supported positions, you’re essentially re-teaching your system how to hinge, bridge, and stabilise from the back side and laying the foundation for stronger, more balanced movement in the next phases of loading and power.

Long Lever Bridge

Why: Builds endurance through the posterior chain while retraining pelvic positioning and deep core engagement.
Benefits:

• Restores tension in lengthened hamstrings.
• Reinforces neutral pelvis under load.
• Enhances posterior pelvic tilt control (key for managing low-back tension).

Slider Leg Curl (Eccentric)

Why: Strengthens the hamstrings through lengthened ranges, rebuilding control and resilience.
Benefits:

• Improves eccentric control and hamstring tension.
• Builds stability at end range — crucial for pelvic and knee health.
• Teaches the hamstrings to stabilise dynamically as they lengthen.

Single-Leg Hyperextension

Why: Challenges unilateral control and coordination between glutes and hamstrings.
Benefits:

• Promotes hip extension strength with spinal alignment.
• Enhances glute–ham synergy.
• Improves endurance through the full posterior chain.

Phase 2: LOAD — Build Stability and Resilience Under Tension

Once you’ve rebuilt control and re-established proper tension through the hamstrings, the next step is to challenge that connection under load.

This phase teaches your body to hold alignment and generate strength when external resistance is introduced because real stability isn’t just about slow, supported control; it’s about being able to maintain that control when the system is under pressure.

During postpartum recovery, the body often relies on compensation patterns: the back muscles take over, the pelvis tips forward, and the hamstrings struggle to share the work. Introducing progressive load helps to:

• Rebuild tissue capacity and strength through the full length of the hamstrings.
• Enhance pelvic stability by reinforcing the link between glutes, hamstrings, and deep core under tension.
• Train symmetry and balance, especially when working one side at a time to correct left–right imbalances that develop during pregnancy and early motherhood.
• Improve joint alignment and movement efficiency, supporting long-term hip and lower-back health.

This phase is where your hamstrings learn to stabilise the pelvis dynamically, controlling both hip extension and knee flexion under load. It bridges the gap between foundational control work and the powerful, athletic strength required for running, lifting, and impact in Phase 3.

Smith Machine Single-Leg RDL

Why: Builds unilateral strength, balance, and hip stability with guided resistance.
Benefits:

• Challenges hamstring strength through a hinge pattern.
• Improves pelvic control and balance.
• Builds cross-body integration between glute, adductor, and core.

Prone Leg Curl

Why: Isolates the hamstrings for pure contraction strength across the knee and hip joints.
Benefits:

• Restores full-range strength in shortened positions.
• Balances the length–tension relationship across the posterior chain.
• Reduces cramping or dominance from calves or low back.

Nordic Curl

Why: One of the most effective eccentric strengthening drills for hamstring and posterior-chain development.
Benefits:

• Builds maximal strength and tissue resilience.
• Prevents hamstring injury and supports running performance.
• Develops strong pelvic control under heavy eccentric load.

Phase 3: POWER — Train Reactivity and Dynamic Stability

Once you’ve rebuilt control and strength, it’s time to teach your hamstrings to react, stabilise, and produce power dynamically. This phase represents the transition from slow, deliberate strength work to athletic coordination — training your system to handle real life movement demands like running, lifting, and sudden changes of direction.

During pregnancy and early postpartum, the nervous system prioritises stability and protection. As a result, the body can lose the ability to generate force quickly or manage high-speed tension changes through the hips and pelvis. This is why rebuilding hamstring reactivity and power is such an important final step. It re-teaches your system how to absorb and release energy efficiently.

The goals in this phase are to:

• Develop reactive strength — teaching the hamstrings to contract and relax quickly for dynamic control.
• Integrate power with breath and core strategy, so the pelvis stays stable during faster or more explosive movement.
• Improve coordination across the posterior chain — linking the hamstrings, glutes, adductors, and core as one system.
• Enhance impact readiness, preparing your body for running, jumping, and return to high-demand activity.

In simple terms: Phase 3 is where control meets speed.
You’re not just strong, you’re responsive. Your hamstrings can stabilise, absorb load, and propel you forward with confidence, helping your hips, pelvis, and spine move as a cohesive unit again.

Hamstring Tantrums

Why: Trains reactive control and fatigue tolerance while maintaining pelvic stability.
Benefits:

• Builds resilience to repeated contractions under load.
• Improves control during high-demand movements.
• Reinforces deep core integration with dynamic posterior work.

Kettlebell Swings

Why: Develops explosive hip extension and full-chain coordination.
Benefits:

• Builds power through the glutes and hamstrings.
• Improves athletic capacity and impact readiness.
• Reinforces hinge mechanics for running and lifting.

Glute Bridge Switch Kicks

Why: Teaches dynamic stability and single-leg control under load.
Benefits:

• Challenges pelvic stability and cross-body coordination.
• Improves core–glute–ham integration.
• Mimics functional, athletic movement patterns.

The Takeaway

Hamstring training isn’t just accessory work — it’s a cornerstone of pelvic and core stability.
When your hamstrings are strong, they support balanced pelvic alignment, efficient movement, and resilient strength through every phase of postpartum recovery and beyond.

If you’ve been skipping them, it’s time to bring them back — not just for stronger legs, but for a more stable, powerful system.

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Ready to Rebuild from the Ground Up?

You’ll find this full progression (and self guided workouts for each phase) inside the Lift with Emily App — designed to help you restore strength, mobility, and full-body coordination postpartum and beyond.

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