Standing Leg Curl

Muscles worked: Hamstrings.

How to do it

1. Adjust the machine lever to fit your height and lie with your torso bent at the waist facing forward around 30-45 degrees (since an angled position is more favorable for hamstrings recruitment) with the pad of the lever on the back of your right leg (just a few inches under the calves) and the front of the right leg on top of the machine pad.
2. Keeping the torso bent forward, ensure your leg is fully stretched and grab the side handles of the machine.
3. As you exhale, curl your right leg up as far as possible without lifting the upper leg from the pad.
4. As you inhale, bring the legs back to the initial position.
5. Perform the same exercise now for the left leg.

Coaching cues

The two cues IronPack shows on this exercise's card mid-workout:

• One leg at a time, hips square
• Heel to the glute, slow negative

Logging it

IronPack suggests working in the 10 to 15 rep range, progressing in 5 kg jumps when you own the top of the range. Records are tracked automatically at every rep count from 1 to 12. Check your estimated 1RM from any hard set.

Related exercises

• Romanian Deadlift - hamstrings
• Good Morning - hamstrings
• Seated Leg Curl - hamstrings
• Lying Leg Curl - hamstrings

Photos and steps: free-exercise-db (public domain). Cues, muscle weighting and logging guidance are IronPack's own app data. Last generated 2026-07-17.