- Sit with your affected leg bent. Your good leg should be straight and supported on the floor.
- Tighten the muscles on the back of your bent leg (hamstring) by pressing your heel into the floor.
- Hold for about 6 seconds, and then rest for up to 10 seconds.
- Repeat 8 to 12 times.
What can you do to help a pulled hamstring?
After a hamstring injury, there are some gentle stretching and mobility techniques for the hamstrings and posterior chain that can be helpful. Some gentle mobility is OK, but this should not be a rehab focus until basic movements like lunges, squats, and bridges are pain-free and mobility is seen as a limiting factor.
What is the recovery time from pulled hamstring?
Feb 16, 2022 · Hamstring strengthening exercises Hamstring catches. Allow your leg to descend naturally from a bent state. To grab the leg before it hits the ground,... Bridge exercises. In a supine position with your legs bent, raise your hips and gluteal muscles to train the gluteal... Lunge with ball. In order ...
What are the best exercises for a pulled hamstring?
How long does it take to rehab a pulled hamstring? Take it easy on your leg. ;Ice your leg to minimize discomfort and swelling. When you’re sitting or lying down, elevate your leg on a cushion to compress it. Anti-inflammatory medications should be used.
How to tell if your hamstring is strained or pulled?
Nov 22, 2021 · Is it good to stretch a pulled hamstring? Gentle stretching of your hamstring is helpful for recovery. Aggressive stretching of your hamstring will delay your recovery. Hold this position for 3 to 5 seconds, and then lower your leg back down. Perform 3 sets of 12 repetitions once per day. Do hamstring injuries ever heal?
How do you heal a pulled hamstring fast?
To speed the healing, you can:Rest the leg. ... Ice your leg to reduce pain and swelling. ... Compress your leg. ... Elevate your leg on a pillow when you're sitting or lying down.Take anti-inflammatory painkillers. ... Practice stretching and strengthening exercises if your doctor/physical therapist recommends them.Jun 22, 2021
How long does it take for a pulled hamstring to heal?
Recovery from a hamstring tear or strain Mild to moderate (grade 1 or 2) tears or strains can heal within three to eight weeks with diligent home therapy. For a grade 3 hamstring tear or strain, recovery may be as long as three months.
How do you rehab a grade 1 hamstring pull?
Hamstring Strain RehabGrade 1 – Mild muscle/tendon pull or strain. ... REST – Immobilize your leg, avoiding any/all physical activity. ... ICE – Apply a cold pack (a frozen bottle of water thinly wrapped in a towel will also work) directly to your hamstring for +/- 20 minutes every 2 to 3 hours.More items...•Oct 20, 2020
What should you not do with a pulled hamstring?
Dont'sDo not force exercise on an injured hamstring. Professional athletes are out for 4-8 weeks with hamstring injuries so running or any intense exercise on the injury is a big mistake.However, don't sit around too much unless it is considered a grade 3. Movement helps to encourage blood flow into the area.Aug 9, 2015
28 Aug The Ultimate Guide to Hamstring Strain Rehabilitation
A hamstring strain can be one of those stubborn injuries that far too often become recurring injuries or a more chronic strain. Their high rate of recurrence is usually due to a lack of careful rehabilitation and training following the injury.
Acute Phase Considerations: Did you just injure your hamstring, or is it currently painful?
The first step in rehabilitating insulted muscle tissue is to find ways to use this muscle without causing further injury. Isometric exercise is defined as a muscular contraction where the muscle length is not changing. In other words, the muscle is being flexed, but it is not creating any movement.
Isometrics for Analgesia: Direct Load Progressions for a Hamstring Strain
Isometrics have numerous applications in strength training as well as rehab. They are an effective way to warm-up and prime muscles for movement as well as decrease sensitivity and pain after injury.
Are you stretching your hamstrings too much, too soon?
One very common misconception is that tight feeling muscles need to be stretched. Muscles can feel tight for a variety of reasons, and it is not always necessary or even beneficial to stretch a muscle. Sometimes, it can even be detrimental to its recovery. During most muscle injuries, the fibers or microscopic cells are slightly torn.
Good Pain vs Bad. Stretch Vs. Pull
Hamstring rehabilitation involves feedback and monitoring of pain and feeling in the hamstring. The more in tune you are with your body, the better your recovery and rehabilitation will go. It is important, to be honest with yourself and be disciplined here, as it is human and athletic instinct to want to constantly push yourself.
Hamstring Strain Exercise Progressions for Athletes
Athletes require more advanced ways to increase the strength of their hamstrings and move beyond the basic bridge and isometric progressions. Unilateral exercises can teach body stiffness, core control, balance, and controlled eccentric lengthening along with reciprocal hip movement.
Other Factors That Influence The Hamstrings
If we want to explore the “WHY?” question as to hamstring strains, we might want to look at two different areas: the opposite hip flexor and the same side glute. During gait or running, as the hamstring is lengthened, so is the contralateral hip flexor.
Rest
Allowing time for the muscle to rest is the first step in the treatment of most hamstring injuries. Rest allows the swelling to subside and inflammation to settle down. In order to sufficiently rest the muscle, sometimes crutches are needed to relieve the stress of the muscle. 2
Stretching
Stretching can begin soon after the injury, but must not be done aggressively or the stretching may exacerbate the injury. Stretching should be gentle and not painful.
Physical Therapy
Physical therapy can help guide an athlete with appropriate treatment. Many people find relief with modalities such as ultrasound, electrical stimulation, and therapeutic massage. 4 Most athletes should begin therapeutic exercise as soon as possible. These types of exercises may include low-impact activities including cycling and pool workouts.
Ice the Injury
Apply ice to the injured hamstring in the acute phase, and then after activities. Ice will help limit the swelling and inflammatory reaction and may help to stimulate blood flow to the injured area. Ice can also be an effective pain-relieving treatment for these types of muscle strains. 6
Heat Applications
Before activities, heating the injured muscle can help loosen the tissue. Applying a heat pack to the hamstring prior to stretching or exercising may help to warm up the injured muscle. As a general rule, remember to heat before, and ice after. 7
Anti-Inflammatory Medications
Anti-inflammatory medications (such as Aleve, Motrin, or ibuprofen) can help relieve pain. These also calm the inflammatory response from the injury. 8
Surgery
Surgical treatment is rarely necessary for the treatment of a hamstring injury. When the injury occurs within the central part of the muscle, it is almost always best to treat these injuries non-surgically.
Hamstring stretching exercises
During the acute stage immediately following a hamstring strain injury no stretching should be done at all, only rest.
Hamstring strengthening exercises
Below are a number of progressively more difficult hamstring exercises. They should always be done pain-free. Where you start and how fast you progress will depend on how bad your injury is and how long ago it was injured.
Aerobic fitness & running progressions
Being injured doesn’t have to mean training stops. This step by step aerobic fitness program to be used when recovering from hamstring strains. It is designed to be used in conjunction with a full hamstring strain rehab program consisting of healing, strengthening and stretching exercises.
Recommended products
A cold therapy and compression wrap is essential first aid. It reduces pain and swelling and can also be used to apply heat later in the rehabilitation program.
How Does the Injury Occur?
Most experts agree hamstrings strains happen while sprinting. If you want to get into the exact science, the actual muscle tear often occurs at the end of the “swing phase” of the running cycle. 11 This is when the leg is moving or “swinging” from behind the body to the front.
A hamstring strain can be graded into 3 degrees
1st degree: only a few muscle or tendon fibers are torn. There may be a small amount of swelling and discomfort. Usually associated with minimal strength loss. You’ll likely be able to walk directly after the injury. Sprinting however will elicit pain.
Risk Factors
The 5 main risk factors people associate with hamstring strains are flexibility, strength, age, sport choice and previous history of the injury. Let’s quickly cover each and whether or not each has any legitimacy.
Rehab Phase 2 (Functional Stability & Return to Light Agility)
Usually about a week or two after the initial injury, we can start loading the healing tissue eccentrically. Before entering this phase it is recommend an athlete is able to walk and perform a high-knee marching movement without any pain.
Preventing Future Injury
Overall there is not a ton of research to help support any particular way to prevent future hamstring strains. However, the use of the Nordic hamstring exercise has shown promise in decreasing the rate of new and recurrent injuries in some athletes.
Final Thoughts
Dealing with a hamstring strain can be difficult, especially if the injury is stubborn (as many are) and continues to return no matter how hard you try. I hope this article was able to give you a better understanding for why this injury occurs and a few ideas on how you can kick start treatment if you ever sustain a low-grade injury.
Tips
The hamstring is actually three separate muscles: the semitendinosus, semimembranosus and biceps femoris.
Warnings
If your leg becomes more painful, more swollen, or more bruised, call a doctor.
About This Article
This article was co-authored by Julian Arana, M.S.eD., NCSF-CPT. Julian Arana is a Personal Trainer and the Founder of B-Fit Training Studios, a personal training and wellness set of studios based in Miami, Florida. Julian has over 12 years of personal training and coaching experience.
