Popped your hamstring, now what?
pickle ball hero?
A few of my favorite duos:
Siegfried and Roy
Bert and Ernie
You playing rec league sports and tearing your hamstring
Hamstrings are of the most frequently strained muscles, and they tend to linger since most rehab for them sucks. I’m only gonna talk about how to care for a fresh hamstring tear.
I’ll attach the later stage rehab for it at the end of this post, and you can grab it when you upgrade to the paid substack.
Best way to treat a NEW hamstring strain.
Do not use RICE, POLICE, PRICE or any of those useless abbreviations. When you need to treat a hamstring strain, you need to strengthen it. To treat and rehab a hamstring strain, you need to focus on the main function of the hamstring, knee flexion. This muscle is almost always strained when trying to slow down (source). Yes, the hamstring also works to extend the hip, but it is rarely injured that way so we will focus on knee flexion.
Isometrics
Toe touch stretch
Hamstring curls
*not strain and tear mean the same thing, but they often get thrown out like they are something different
“I thought it was torn, but turns out it was just a strain” just means the tear was not as bad as they thought.
Anyway, here’s the exercises:
Isometrics
Isometrics are the single best exercise you can do in the early stages. Since they muscle length doesn’t change, there’s basically 0 risk of increased damage to the muscle.
Squeeze the heel into the leg of a chair, back of a couch etc
Hold the position for 5 seconds
Complete 20 reps
Perform this twice a day, separated by 6 hours
Toe Touches
This is NOT a static stretch. This is going to be moving the muscle through as much pain free ROM as there is.
Reach as low as possible with as little pain as possible
Hold this position for 1 second
Release and go back to standing up right
Perform this again and find that painful range again
As you perform more and more reps, that painful sticking point will get lower and lower and full ROM is established
Perform 50 reps per session, twice a day
Repeat for as long as needed to restore full ROM
Hamstring Curls
Do not progress to this until you have full ROM. Strengthening a muscle in a limited motion will result in causing more dysfunction and increasing injury risk. Below are three options pending what equipment you have access to.
Regardless of option, complete 3 sets of 12 reps
Increase reps before adding weight
ie progress from 12-15-20 reps, then add weight when 20 is achievable
These exercises will take you from an acute hamstring strain to being able to have normal ROM and moderate returns in strength. You are now ready for a traditional strength program to return to normal function.
I feel better, now what?
Our hip and back protocol is the traditional strength program that you can start once you have normal ROM. I’ve seen that take 5 days to 5 weeks.
The goal is to progress the RDLs to a weight we call HAF, then start to include sprinting.
The above 2 exercises are what separate good hamstring rehab from shitty. Most people have the shitty version.
Grab the program below: