[Closed] Hamstrings

Pilates is what you want. Stretches and increases flexibility of the whole chain from lower back, glutes, hams, calves and achilles.
Worked wonders for me when i returned to squash after a long break. Sorted out the sore hams and achilles and it's a long-term solution for me.

Had problems with my hamstrings as well. I have been doing HIIT and core classes at my gym and that's pretty much sorted them. Squats, lunges, band exercises, etc.

Physio has recommended strengthening exercises which do seem to help but wonder if any particular cycling related stretches etc would also help. It may just be old age.

I don't think you need anything cycling specific, just lots of stretching and strength work to improve tolerance.

I tore mine last Dec, still not fully up to where it was but fine for cycling.

My rehab was stretching and very easy cycling (on my own, no groups) for a few months, then slowly adding back posterior chain strength exercises, very carefully incrementally loading it over several months, taken about 6 months to get full deadlift strength back. Now slowly adding Nordic hamstring curls back in, again being very gradual with no sudden jumps in load or repetitions. Probably a few more months and it'll be back where it was before I tore it! Almost be a year in total!

Loads of rehab guides online eg:

I have a S&C coach I see once a week anyway, so he just adapted my program to accomodate the injury and each week I'd report back how it was and he'd tweak the sessions up/down etc to accomoate the feedback.

Physio has given you the right S word - strengthen. Not stretch.

You've got skinny little elastic band hamstrings so what's the point of stretching them? They'll only break again playing football. You need big thick wide elastic band hammys - build them up and you can stretch them all day if you like, but you won't need to.

Thanks. Useful advice. Re specific strengthening excercises is there eg any you tube vids that would recommend that show me specifically what to do? Footflps your link is great but not entirely sure what any of those exercises are.

Thanks. Useful advice. Re specific strengthening excercises is there eg any you tube vids that would recommend that show me specifically what to do

Well lots of studies say the best exercise for preventing hamstring injury is increasing load tolerance using nordic hamstring curls e.g.

These are normally done eccentricly, you just try and resist falling until you no longer can and the collapse. Most people only get to about 30 degrees and then can't hold their own weight anymore.

However, this puts a *huge* load through the hamstring and if you have any weakness present eg not fully recovered from an injury, you could do some pretty good damage.

You can modify the traditional curl from a knee hinge to a hip hinge, which scales back the load considerably. Then you can modify it again by starting with concentric only ie start bent over at 90 degrees, extend the hamstring till upright then lower yourself using arms etc and repeat.

This is pretty much how my rehab went. I started with sets of three concentric only hamstring hip curls which was right on the limit for my hamstring at that phase. Then I progressed to hip hinge eccentric and concentric curls, I'm now on weighted hip hinges where I hold a plate to my chest to up the load a bit (same as the guy above).

I haven't started the proper knee hinge nordic yet as that's pretty brutal. Although, pre injury I did do weighted full nordics.

So a progression would be:

1. Hip hinge concentric curl x 3
2. Hip hinge concentric curl x 3 + say 2.5kg plate
3. Hip hinge concentric and eccentric curl x 3 unweighted
4. Hip hinge concentric and eccentric curl x 3 + 2.5 kg plate

If you can follow that without any pain then try one full nordic eccentric and just let go quite early.

Obvs the ideal case would be you see a Sports physio / S&C coach who specialised in rehab and they program you according to your needs; but really good S&C coaches are few and far between....

NB If you don't have stall bars (the ladder thing in the first video), a weighted bar bell is fine, that's what I used to use in the gym. I now have Stall bars at home and made an attachment for doing Nordics out of some Ply..

Physio has given you the right S word – strengthen. Not stretch.

Lengthening the tendon is normally part of the rehab process as if it's too short you'll be prone to reinjuring it. When you tear a tendon it quite often ends up slightly shorter or less extensible unless you rehab it.

Eg analysis of rehab methods etc normally use both strength and length as metrics: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/51/5/469

Cheers FF much appreciated.

Sorry OP for slight hijack but @susepic (or anyone else) any recommendations for online Pilates?

@grum I went to a local class for a while (before lockdown) and having signed up and spent ££ it meant i actually went.

Haven't used youtube sessions, but there are lots out there for cyclists.

The practitioner who did the classes did some online stuff over lockdown, i'll find out if she's still running online classes.