Hamstring Injury Exercises to Avoid
Quick Summary: Do you want to know how to prevent hamstring injuries or want to recover from them effectively? If these are your point of concern then you can stop worrying about it. We have prepared a detailed blog about hamstring injuries, how they happen, what you can do to avoid them, and the mistakes that you must stay away from while recovering from them. Let’s explore.
We all know that hamstrings are one the strongest muscles in our body and they help us maintain balance, walking, running, jumping, etc. However, facing a hamstring injury can take away all of this if not treated carefully. Hamstring injuries are more common than you think, some of them are mild while some of them are severe. However, you must not ignore any of them. Let’s understand what are hamstring injuries and what hamstring exercises you must avoid when you are recovering from hamstring injuries.
What are the Hamstrings?
Hamstrings are a strong band of tissues that lie on the back side of the thighs and connect the large thigh muscles to bone. They run from thighs to knees. They make daily activities like running, walking, jumping, sitting, climbing, etc. possible. Other than that they also help in rotation and extend the hip and knees. However, not taking proper care of hamstring muscles or overusing them can lead to hamstring injuries.
Read More: Benefits of Stretching the Hamstrings
What is Hamstring Injury?
Hamstring injury is one of the worst muscle injuries that can happen in the human body. It happens when there is a strain or tear in the hamstring muscles back of the thigh. It restricts basic movements like walking, standing, running, jumping, etc. This muscle injury is divided into 3 grades based on the level of pain and damage to the tendons.
Grades in Hamstring Injury
You must have seen many sports players suffering from hamstring injuries and you must have also noticed that some of them recover quickly compared to others. Well, the time period of recovery depends on the grade of the hamstring injury. There are in total 3 grades. Let’s understand them.
Grade 1: The grade 1 hamstring injury is a mild muscle pull or strain that happens when you overstretch the hamstrings. There are no tears in it. It also sometimes goes unnoticed until the activity is done. There is no specific loss of muscle flexibility and strength in grade 1 injury.
Grade 2: The grade 2 injury is quite more severe and painful than grade 1. There is a partial tear in the hamstring muscles which is felt immediately. Unlike grade 1 injury, there is a certain loss in muscle flexibility and strength in grade 2 injury. It usually takes more time to recover from it.
Grade 3: The grade 3 injury is the worst of all. It completely tears up the hamstring muscles taking away all flexibility, strength, and motion. The pain in this is very severe and sharp. You won’t be able to move your leg at all if you have a grade 3 hamstring injury. In most of the cases, surgery is the only option to repair the damage.
Causes of Hamstring Injuries
Although hamstrings are one the largest and strongest muscles in the body, not taking care of them can damage them easily. You have seen that many footballers, rugby players, or any field sports players face this injury very often. But what’s the reason? They are athletes and it’s not like that they don’t take care of their muscles, so why does it happen to them more than normal humans? The reasons are:
- A direct blow on the thigh tears tendons leading to hamstring injuries.
- Training too hard and not taking rest properly also damages the tendons.
- Not warming up properly is one the biggest reasons for the grade 1 hamstring injury.
- An improper pre-conditioning program also leads to tendon pulls and tears.
- Having a previous hamstring injury is also one of the reasons behind hamstring injuries.
Mistakes in the Rehabilitation from Hamstring Injuries
Making mistakes in rehabilitation from hamstring injuries is like coming out of the pit only to fall into another one. And that is why doctors recommend no intense activity until the muscles are fully recovered. Many people think that their hamstring injuries are normal and can be fixed with basic exercises but it’s not always the case, doing exercise without consulting a physiotherapist can worsen the injury.
Some of the hamstring injury exercises to avoid are explosive movements, deep knee flexion, overstretching, high-speed running, heavily weighted leg press, plyometrics exercises, etc. Not only this, you also need to avoid the mistakes mentioned below to recover effectively and quickly.
Loading the Hamstring Too Early
Loading the hamstring too early can worsen the injury and slow down the healing process. People tend to stretch through pain and discomfort thinking the strained hamstring muscle will get loose and they will feel better. However, this delays the healing process instead of making it fast. If you are new to sports and have a hamstring injury, try to avoid stretching for some time as it won’t help you but delay your comeback in the sport.
Not Performing Eccentric Exercises
Most of the hamstring injuries happen during the swing phase of running when the hip flexes and the knee extends. It happens because of the large eccentric contractions. This is the reason many hamstring injury prevention exercises and strain rehabilitation programs include eccentric hamstring stretches and exercises. It is necessary because when the hamstring strains the eccentric hamstring strength is reduced significantly. To get that strength back do exercises like a single leg RDL, Nordic hamstring exercise at 0 degrees, etc.
Not Performing Dynamic Hamstring Exercises
Dynamic hamstring exercises are as important as eccentric exercises. This is because sports targets both rapid eccentric contraction and explosive concentric contraction. Doing exercises that target only one of the two can lead to another muscle injury and that’s the last thing you would want, recovering from one injury only to have another one. For the best recovery, you can hire physical therapy services.
Returning to Sports Too Early
The first and the most important thing you must do after having a hamstring injury no matter the grade whether it is grade 1, 2 or grade 3 is to avoid returning to sports too early. Your focus should be recovering completely. Returning to sports too early after the injury can lead to hamstring weaknesses and imbalances that ultimately lead to another hamstring injury. The recovery period is different for different people.
Conclusion
Hamstring injuries are one the most common injuries in sports particularly in field sports. If you are into sports like football, rugby, athletics, etc. you have a high chance of having them if you do not take care of your body properly by doing warm-ups, dynamic stretching, conditioning, and resting. In case you have got your hamstring injured you should connect to your nearest physiotherapists. If you are an athlete living in New Jersey you can consult doctors at Town Physical Therapy.
We have experts with years of valuable experience that can help you in recovering from hamstring injuries. We have 5 physical therapy centers in Paramus, Emerson, Bergenfield, Clifton, and Maywood. Apart from therapies for hamstring injuries we also provide occupational therapy, sports physical therapy, physical therapy and rehabilitation, and shockwave therapy. Contact us for more details.
