BLOG: How to rehab a hamstring injury

Very few footballers get through a career without a hamstring injury.

If they are lucky, it’s just a slight pull, strain or tear.

If not, a big tear can leave players out of the game for a long period and, crucially, can also make certain players more likely to pick up another hamstring injury further down the line.

Hamstring injuries often happen when people are running fast so it’s clearly a problem for footballers.

They are not the only ones though.

I remember seeing numerous 100-metre sprinters just suddenly grab their leg in agony mid-stride and that’s a classic time to injure your hamstring.

Hamstring injuries cause people to grab their leg like they have been shot.

When you are running at full pelt, bending your knee out in front of you and then trying to drive and straighten the leg again - that ‘flick-out’ action can over-stretch the muscles and cause a tear or strain.

Let’s give you a bit of a better idea about the set-up of the hamstring.

You have three hamstring muscles, all three are at the back of your leg and all three bend your knee, with the bicep femoris also involved in taking the leg behind you as well.

Stabilise

They are important at stabilising the knee.

When they become injured we grade them with a 1,2 or 3 depending on the severity and an A, B, or C depending on where they are.

Grade 1 means you will usually be 4-6 weeks out of the game, Grade 2 is around 6-8 weeks and Grade 3 is anything up to 12 weeks and beyond, depending on where that tear is.

Surgery is an option for a full rupture where the muscle and the tendon meet and that is a six-month recovery. In fact, I am working with someone now who needs surgery and there are some real complications with that.

Unlike many other common injuries that footballers can pick up, hamstring injuries tend to be recurring and that’s even the case after a good bout of strengthening.

People have asked me why that is the case and I guess it’s down to a mixture of playing sports that just lead themselves to the dangers of a hamstring injury (like football), added to a prevalence of people not carrying through on rehab and strengthening exercises post recovery.

So, what can you do after a hamstring injury to minimise your risk of picking one up again?

Well, it’s important to drip feed your exercises in up to 12 or 18 months after you have recovered. This will give you the best possible chance of your issue not coming back.

Rehab

Once people are back playing and fit again, it’s all too easy to let that rehab/prehab time drift in favour of doing something else more exciting.

So, my advice there is…be boring! Do your exercises.

Footballers are also traditionally, inflexible at the back of the body and can have global chain tightness from top to bottom. So, stretch well…all of the time and try and maintain your flexibility.

Be wary of your chances of picking up a hamstring and protect yourself if you play in a position that requires sprints or top speeds. That sort of explosive power that I have been talking about with sprinters.

Centre-halves are unlikely to pull a hamstring because they do lots of short movements but wingers and centre forwards are certainly more susceptible to a hamstring injury.

Optimum Derby have a range of exercises that can help you avoid hamstring problems so please get in touch if you would like us to get involved in helping keep you fit and active.

READ MORE: Diagnosing a fixing a torn Achilles tendon.