Injury Focus: Hamstring Strains

One of the common injuries we see at the start of a new season, or when starting a new fitness regime, are hamstring muscle strains… So how do these occur?

Hamstring muscle strains commonly occur in sports where high speed running is involved, such as field sports like football and hockey, and sprinting in athletics . They are most likely to occur due to excessive muscle loading during eccentric contraction (the lengthening phase of muscle effort) in the latter phase of the running gait cycle.

There are some non-modifiable (unchangeable) risk factors associated with hamstring muscle strains including age (yes, when young when can get away with more!), race and previous injury. Importantly there are also some key modifiable risk factors that can be addressed before injury (or re-injury) occurs in order to reduce the changes of injury.

These can include:

– A lack of muscle flexibility

– Reduced muscle strength or strength imbalance

– Insufficiently warming up

– Fatigue

– Low back injury

– Poor low back posture

– Increased muscle neural tension

It is important to make sure you are doing the correct exercises to help mitigate your risk of sustaining a hamstring muscle strain. As a starting point, ensuring your hamstring muscles are strong enough and conditioned to be able to cope with the challenges at hand is key. Gradually progressing the speed and duration of the running you are undertaking will also be vital. Once up to speed and running consistently well (this takes time), regularly including some speed running into your program can then actually help to reduce the chances of sustaining a hamstring strain!

But remember everyone will be different, so it is also important to make sure you are doing exercises that are tailored specifically for you and your level of fitness and training history.

To find out more info specific to you, and to have an assessment performed including strength testing with hand held dynamometer (digital muscle strength testing), don’t hesitate to get in touch with us to make an appointment.