Hamstring injury

Hamstring injuries are common in sports involving running. It is more common in sprinters but I also see a fair bit of long distance runners that pull there hamstrings. The main problem with hamstring strains is there high recurrence rate. Some studies suggest that one out of three athletes will re-injure there hamstring within a year of returning to there sports.

The hamstring is a muscle located at the back of your thigh. When you pull your hamstring muscle, there will usually be a tear in the muscle. This is followed by some bleeding and inflammation inside the muscle. Depending on the degree of the tear you may or may not see a bruise. Soon after, your body will start repairing the area by laying down scar tissue and new muscle cells will start forming.

Traditionally, these injuries have been treated with stretching and strengthening directed to the hamstring muscle itself. Due to the high reoccurrence of these injuries; clinician and researchers have been looking into other type of treatments for this problem. A study published by Sherry & Best (2004) published in the Journal of orthopaedic sports physical therapy has shown that agility exercise and core exercises might be better to prevent hamstring injuries from recurring.

When running, multiple muscles have to work in synergy to help us run efficiently. A lot of runners tend to get muscle imbalances in there core and hip muscle. When running these muscle imbalances often lead to the pelvis being unlevelled. The hamstring attaches right at the bottom of the “sitting bone” which is part of the pelvis. The hamstring is often called the weakest link of the chain. Therefore if your core and hip muscle are not working properly and your pelvis drops every step you take; this will lead to a constant pulling of the hamstring muscle. Over time, the hamstring gets overworked and strained. This could also explain why the study by Sherry & Best helped to reduce the reoccurrence of hamstring injuries, by rebalancing the core and hip muscles.

My personal approach to get athletes back to there sport as soon as possible also involve decreasing the inflammation in the initial stage of the injury (with ice). And after the muscle starts to lay down scar tissue, I use a few muscle treatment techniques. One of them is called Graston Technique. But, the injury can only be prevented from reoccurring by properly addressing the cause of the injury, which is the muscle imbalances present in the hip and core muscles.