Tearing your hamstrings muscle is a significant event. It usually happens during a slip or fall, especially if there is a sudden force to the leg causing it to extend much further forward than usual. It is instantly hard to walk due to the intense pain, and there is often a rapid onset of swelling or bruising. Once some of the pain recedes (after a week or so), it begins to feels like there’s a ball of tightness behind the thigh.
Everything about how the hamstring feels at this stage makes you want to stretch it out.
But I’ve got one word for you about that… “Don’t”.
Here’s why: Time now for Keith’s analogy of the day 🙂
If you’ve ever been involved in a motor vehicle accident, You might remember how nervous you were to get back in the car and be among traffic again. Most people become a little more anxious for a while. They are more cautious about merging into traffic, they don’t follow as close, they drive a little slower. All with an eye toward avoiding further injury.
The hamstring does the same thing.
After a significant trauma where muscles were stretched to the point of tearing, the last thing the hamstrings wants to do is to be stretched again. Moving to end range feels unsafe. In fact, to avoid further injury, the healing muscle simply won’t allow stretching.
What the hamstrings really wants to do is to feel strong again.
It probably goes without saying that tearing a muscle immediately decreases the strength of that muscle. Additionally, after an injury to a muscle, because we tend to protect it from being overused, there’s a period of time that the muscle function is quite minimal. That means the muscle rapidly loses strength, and if the weak muscle is put under stretch at this stage, it feels insecure. Kinda like it might tear again. Which, in fact, it might if you’re not careful. So, building up the strength of the muscle is just the thing.
Most folks will need to start with isometric strengthening.
The key to this exercise is driving the heel into the ground to contract the hamstrings muscle. Try holding this contraction for up to 30 seconds for 5-10 reps. You are likely to have a little pain at first, but most research indicates that if you keep the pain-level at a 4 or below, your injured hamstring can handle that fine.
After a week or two of daily practice with this, you’ll be noticing some real progress. Your hamstring is still weak though, so it’s time to increase the intensity of your program.
Contracting the hamstrings more vigorously can be done in a variety of ways. It’s best to add exercises individually so as to not increase the vigor too rapidly.
By using elastic band for resistance, this one will help you strengthen the hamstrings through the full range of motion. You can also do this at the gym with the leg curl machine.
This one is quite vigorous, and can be done with either both legs or lifting one leg. No equipment required!
Finally, this exercise can be done with very high intensity by lifting weights from the ground
or by standing on only 1 leg
As your hamstring gets stronger, you’ll notice something you didn’t expect… you’ll begin to notice improved flexibility. That’s right, by getting stronger, you can regain full range of motion without actually working on stretching.
To wrap things up, it’s probably useful for me to say that strengthening programs are not just for hamstrings issues. Tears or even strains of other muscle tissues can also benefit from getting them stronger. The challenge that most people encounter is being unsure of when to do which exercise, and how hard to push. Well, that’s where a knowledgeable physical therapist can be useful.
Give me a call, I’m here to help 🙂
Keith Blackwell is the owner of Essential Physical Therapy in Eugene, OR. A specialist in spine issues, he’s also a reluctant expert at rehabilitating hamstrings injuries after working hard to resolve his own long-standing hamstrings tear. For more information visit physicaltherapyeugene.com or call the office at 458-210-2940.
Tags: hamstrings tear, hamstrings injury, hamstrings strengthening exercises
