Rev Up Your Recovery: How to Rehab Your Hamstring Like a Pro
Are you dealing with a hamstring injury and looking for ways to speed up your recovery? Hamstring strains can be debilitating and can keep you from doing the things you love, but with the right rehabilitation exercises and techniques, you can get back to your normal routine in no time. In this blog post, we will go over some of the most effective ways to rehabilitate your hamstring and get you back to your best self..
Interesting insight from a commentary discussing sprinting and hamstrings. Simple and short information.
“The hamstring muscles need to be prepared to safely provide the ‘function’ it is to perform, and suboptimal adaptation to biomechanical strain presents a higher risk for damage. At high velocity (>7m/s or >26km/hour), a 30% increase in running velocity leads to a ~100% increase in hamstring muscle requirements. We suggest that athletes mostly or only exposed to high but not maximal running velocity (ie, ≤90% of maximal velocity) often have not exposed their hamstring muscles to the sprinting-specific mechanical requirements needed for adequate preparation and prevention”
As this is an editorial, I have summarised it below.
Hamstring injuries are a common problem in sports that require sprinting, such as football and track and field. In fact, sprinting represents about two-thirds of hamstring injury mechanisms. There are several sprinting-related parameters that are associated with hamstring injuries, such as greater anterior pelvic tilt and thoracic side bending during swing phase, and lower horizontal force production capacity during sprint acceleration.
To reduce the risk of hamstring injuries, it is important to consider sprinting as a key component of a comprehensive, multi-factorial, individualized hamstring injury risk management approach. This approach should focus on the complex and unique sprinting movement biomechanics, such as leg interaction, elastic energy transfer, reflexes, kinematics, kinetics, and lumbopelvic control.
The implementation of sprinting within a hamstring injury risk management approach should follow a loop, including evaluation, intervention/preparation based on the evaluation, and re-evaluation and progression. The evaluation of the sprinting "structures", kinetics, kinematics, and exposure can be done according to the time and level of the athlete.
The intervention/preparation should focus on finding the appropriate balance for each individual athlete and avoiding underexposure and overexposure to sprinting. The sprinting pattern should be targeted before considering sprinting "load" by preparing the system to sustain the sprinting constraints: "form first, load second". Then, a progressive increase in the volume, intensity and exposure to pattern. Regularity in sprinting practice is critical, ensuring a season-long exposure with no substantial interruption of more than 7 or 10 days and periodization of training including at least 48 hours of recovery between sprinting sessions. Variation in force and velocity of sprinting can be promoted by using heavy sled or downhill running.
In conclusion, sprinting is an irreplaceable measure for hamstring injury risk management and should be integrated through a multifaceted approach. Such an approach using sprinting can be viewed by athletes and coaches as a gradual mitigation process given the regular, progressively increased exposure to the risk factor, sprinting, to build up "immunity" for sprint-related hamstring injury. Sprinting should not only be considered as a part of the problem but also, and more importantly, as a part of the solution
