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Study leaves no doubt: For the biceps femoris, Romanian deadlifts rule.

I am not quite sure if some of the guys at my gym even know what the hamstrings, are... I guess if I told them that theyre also started biceps femoris, they were more likely to train it, instead of telling me that they play soccer and thus wouldnt have to train legs (I have honestly never heard something that stupid - I mean, its like, I dont train jumping, because I am a high jumper ;-).

Now, if we assume for the moment that my arguments are convincing enough to include a single hamstring exercise on their every-day-international-chest-and-biceps-day, what should it be, then?
If you look back at the SuppVersity EMG Series, it would be the lying leg curl with tighs raised from the pad or hamstring exercises on the hip pendulum. If, on the other hand, you take a look at the data Matt J. McAllister & colleagues are about to publish in the next issue of the venerable Journal of Strength and Conditioning Researchers, one of the few places, where editors actually care about the interests of muscle-headz like us, the answer would be different.

Figure 1: EMG activity of biceps femoris and semitendinosus durinc ecccentric (light) and concentric (dark) phase of the romanian deadlift, the prone leg curl, good mornings and glute-ham raises in 12 subjects w/ 9y+ training exp. (McAllister)

What? You want to know where this difference comes from? Well, the reason should be obvious, Boeckh-Behrens & Buskies who conducted the study the EMG Series is based on did not test the weighed Romanian deadlift w/ maximum weight for "security reasons".

The leg curl, on the other hand, was significantly less effective when it was done with the tighs lying on the pad (as it was done in the study at hand) - exercise selection and execution did thus both contribute to the surprisingly different study outcomes, which do yet have one thing in common: The insight that activities of similar kinematics, dont necessarily produce similar muscle activation. As McAllister et al. poin out, this revelation may...

"[...] also indicate that the kinematics are not as similar as they appear to be, especially when you consider possible variance of internal and external rotation. For instance, the ST [semitendinosus] and SM  [semimembranosus] insert at the upper medial surface of the tibia, and the BF inserts at the head of the fibula. The greater amount of activity from ST may be related to the fact that ST contributes to the internal rotation of the knee, whereas BF contributes to the external rotation of the knee. Although the potential impact is unclear, the absence of control for hip rotation (internal or external) may have obviated the identification of specific patterns of muscle recruitment. Foot position was not standardized in this study because the investigators felt that the subjects’ experience would allow foot position to be habitual and consistent. This delimitation must be considered when interpreting our results." (McAllister. 2014)

In contrast to the semitendinosus & semimembranosus, the EMG activity for the biceps femoris (BF) was similar for the concentric prone leg curl and concentric romanian deadlift. As McAllister et al. point out, "[t]hese results are consistent with a previous investigation that reported no significant difference in activity from the concentric actions of the BF between the leg curl and stiff-leg deadlift." The authors of the corresponidn study did also find that the biceps femoris was significantly more active during the eccentric portion of the leg curl in comparison with the stiff-leg deadlift - the exact opposite of the findings McAllister et al. present in the study at hand, which showed significantly greater activity from the BF during the eccentric RDL as compared with the eccentric prone leg curl.

The study tested only leg exercises, but you can safely expect increased reps on other exercises, as well.

Citrulline? Yes thats the stuff the supplement industry claims to be a better version of arginine. A "super pump supplement", but not necessarily an ergogenic - in spite of the fact that corresponding evidence from rodent and human studies (Briand. 1992; Pérez-Guisado. 2010; Giannesini. 2011) existed years before the study at hand was published (Wax. 2014).

Benjamin Wax and his colleagues from the Mississippi State University and the Auburn University  investigated the effects of citrulline malate supplementation on lower-body resistance exercise performance, blood lactate, heart rate, and blood pressure.

Based on citrulline malate’s chemical composition and a review of the current literature Wax et al. hypothesized that citrulline malate supplementation would mitigate fatigue occurring to the working muscle; therefore, augmenting resistance training performance.
To test their hypothesis the researchers recruited 12 advanced resistance trained male subjects (85kg body weight; <12% body fat; 22.1 ± 1.4 years) and conducted a randomized, counterbalanced, double blind study.

The subjects were randomly assigned to placebo or citrulline malate (8 g; 60 minutes before the workout) groups and then performed repeated bouts of multiple lower body resistance exercise:

"Subjects warmed up on an upright stationary bike (Life Fitness, Brunswick Corporation, Lake Fores, IL) for five minutes, at 60 – 70 revolution/minute with a mass of 3 – 5 kg. Following this warm up, subjects performed two warm up sets (10 repetitions at 90.9 kg and 8 repetitions at 136.4 kg) on the leg press machine. Subjects rested three minutes between sets during the warm up and trial sets.

Next, 60% of each subject’s predetermined 1RM was loaded on the leg press machine and the subject completed as many repetitions as possible until failure occurred. This process was completed for 4 additional sets for a total of 5 sets on the leg press. Next, the subjects performed one warm upset (10 repetitions) on the hack squat machine at a mass of 40.9 kg. This warm up set was followed by 5 sets of 60% of their predetermined 1RM to failure. Finally, following one warm up set (10 repetitions at 36.4 kg) on the leg extension, subjects completed 5 sets of 60% of their 1RM to failure." (Wax. 2014)

The rest periods (recovery periods between sets of exercise), exercise order, and number of sets performed were the same for all subjects in this investigation, for sessions 2 and 3. Blood lactate, heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure were determined pre and post exercise.
The exercise protocol resulted in sequential significant (p < 0.05) decrease in the number of repetitions in all three exercises. However, subjects in the citrulline malate group performed significantly (p < 0.05) higher number of repetitions during all three exercises compared to placebo group.

Figure 1: Wax et al. observed significant increases in maximal leg press, hack squat, and leg extension (not shown) repetitions in response to the ingestion of 8g of citrulline malate 60min before exercise (Wax. 2014)

Blood lactate and heart rate, on the other hand, were significantly increased (p < 0.05) post-exercise in both groups with no significant inter-group differences between citrulline malate and placebo (p > 0.05).
References:

• Briand, Joël, et al. "Use of a microbial model for the determination of drug effects on cell metabolism and energetics: Study of citrulline?malate." Biopharmaceutics & drug disposition 13.1 (1992): 1-22.
• Hickner, Robert C., et al. "L-citrulline reduces time to exhaustion and insulin response to a graded exercise test." Medicine and science in sports and exercise 38.4 (2006): 660-666.
• Giannesini, Benoît, et al. "Citrulline malate supplementation increases muscle efficiency in rat skeletal muscle." European journal of pharmacology 667.1 (2011): 100-104.
• Pérez-Guisado, Joaquín, and Philip M. Jakeman. "Citrulline malate enhances athletic anaerobic performance and relieves muscle soreness." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 24.5 (2010): 1215-1222.
• Verleye, M., et al. "Effects of citrulline malate on bacterial lipopolysaccharide induced endotoxemia in rats." Arzneimittelforschung 45.6 (1995): E712.
• Wax, Benjamin, et al. "Effects of Supplemental Citrulline Malate Ingestion During Repeated Bouts of Lower-body Exercise in Advanced Weight Lifters." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research (2014).