Hurt your hamstring? How we can help!

Hamstring injuries are extremely common, they are particularly frequent in individuals who play sports with a dynamic movement such as sprinting and jumping. When you think of high level strengthening in rehabilitation, hamstring injuries are usually the first condition that comes to mind, and for good reason. Seeing people deadlift and squat huge amounts of weight in the gym is not uncommon whereas you would never consider putting other structures like rotator cuff muscles through the same strain. This blog will aim to shed some light on current rehabilitation techniques for anyone who may suffering from a hamstring injury.

Firstly, it is important to understand what the hamstrings are and what they do. The hamstrings are a group of three muscles that are responsible for bending the knee, extending the hip, and rotating the hip, they run down the back of our thigh and insert at the knee.

Hamstring strain symptoms

·       Pain

·       Tenderness

·       Loss of motion

·       Decreased strength on contraction.

·       Decreased length of the hamstrings

Hamstring strain grading

·       Grade 1 (mild): just a few fibres of the muscle are damaged or have ruptured. This rarely influences the muscle's power and endurance.

·       Grade 2 (medium): approximately half of the fibres are torn. Symptoms are acute pain, swelling and a mild case of function loss, Walking may be affected.

·       Grade 3 (severe): ranging from more than half of the fibres ruptured to complete rupture of the muscle. Both the muscle belly and the tendon can suffer from this injury. It causes massive swelling and pain. The function of the hamstring muscle can't be performed anymore.

The 3 main considerations for hamstring rehabilitation are:

1.     Load- one of the main reasons why hamstring strains re-occur is due to not properly loading to begin with. Basic bridges and isolated theraband leg curls should be considered first, and load increased progressively based on outcome measures such as pain and power.

2.     Speed- The most common injury mechanism for hamstring strains is sprinting at full speed. A commonly missed part of rehabilitating the hamstring is preparing for the speed demands of any activity or sport that the patient is involved with.

3.     Muscle length- While sprinting is one of the main causes of hamstring injury, equally people with tight/short hamstrings are at a greater risk of hamstring stain and re injury, for this reason flexibility should be incorporated into a rehab program.

If you are currently suffering from a hamstring injury that you are struggling to fully recover from then you can give us a call on 01202 604707 or email admin@wimbornewellnesscentre.co.uk.