Need help w/pulled hamstring

[Chief Wiggum]

I pulled a hammy about 3 weeks ago and I was wondering if anyone else has had experience with this injury and could give advice. I pulled it BAD. A large portion of the back of my leg eventually bruised but I'm not feeling much pain anymore.

I just want to play soccer again and not reinjure it.

[Hemtt]

I pull hammys on rucks a lot in the wintertime. The best rehab I've found is stationary biking with the seat at a low setting so my knees don't extend all the way, I gradually move it up to extend my leg all the way over a couple days. Spending more time stretching in the mornings along with a couple extra heavy sets on the leg curl machine helped me too.

Will Coy

I should be in the gym insted of typing.

[ProWriter]

Here's the general deal with rehabilitating muscle pulls:

You can't really do anything to make them heal faster, and biking is fine, but that's not something you do until the injury is substantially healed.

On the other hand, there's plenty you can do to prolong and worsen the injury and suffer relapses unnecessarily. Conversely, there are a few things you can do to lessen the chance of a recurrence.

During the recuperative phase (anything after the first 72 hours, basically) you can use a heat pack, or moist heat like a whirlpool, which is even better. Before that you never apply heat to this type of injury because it will increase internal bleeding and bruising. Similarly, you want to avoid anti-inflammatories like aspirin for the same reason (they thin the blood and that increases bleeding too).

One thing most athletes in contact sports have discovered is DMSO (Dimethylsulfoxide), which is fantastic for bruises and muscle pulls, especially if you use it real soon after the injury. Technically, it's not approved for human medical use (it's an industrial solvent), but athletes have used it for decades and if you do a Google search, you can find roll-on bottles of it for about $5.00. The only downside is it can give your breath and your sweat a garlic-like odor...and since it's a solvent, don't wear any color-dyed clothes directly over the area because it could ruin the clothes...nor do you want to absorb any color dye or ink through your skin.
The stuff works particularly well if you apply it to an area that has just been struck by a blow that is likely to leave a bruise...a lot of times the bruise never even turns color if you apply DMSO right away. (Obviously, it's not for any injury where you suspect a broken bone and you don't apply it to open wounds, either). Some studies suggest DMSO might be a cause of cataracts later in life, but it's not like you break out the DMSO all the time, so I'm not particularly worried about it, personally.

Compression shorts seem to help by providing a little support and by keeping the area nice and warm (cold unstretched muscles are always more prone to injury)...so they're always good to wear under clothes or uniforms.

Massage seems to promote healing, and the right order is to first apply a little bit of warmth to the area, then do some very light stretching without any bouncing (anytime you stretch, that is, not just for hamstring rehab)...then after the light stretching do the deep tissue massage (obviously someone else has to do it for you)...and then you can ice it a bit if you want, but it's also fine if you don't. (See my post on knee injuries for a more detailed explanation of the function of icing/warming injuries.)

I totally disagree about heavy leg curls...especially if you already have any history of hamstring pulls. Generally, weight training should always be done with weights that allow you to move the weight throughout a full range of motion, AND at a uniform speed throughout the entire motion. In the case of a hamstring injury, the last thing you want to do is expose the weaker range of the muscle movement to the heaviest weights that you can handle for the strongest part of the movement. Heavy training also makes it almost impossible to avoid jerking the weight, which exposes delicate, healing muscle fibers to traumatic instantaneous loads, rather than steady moderate loads. Once you're back to weight training, you should still avoid heavy, jerky leg curls...and it's always a good idea to take the time to stretch both before and after any athletic activity if you've already had a hamstring problem. Another contributing factor is differential strength levels of opposing muscle groups...so if you're one of those dudes who usually just does the leg press and blows off your leg curls, that's an issue too, because much stronger quads than hamstrings is another predictor of hamstring pulls.

The length of recovery time depends mostly on how bad the strain is, and that's primarily a function of (literally) how many individual muscle fibers were traumatized by the injury. Bad hamstring pulls can take a long time (as in months) to fully recover and even longer before you don't have to worry about re irritating it all over again.

On that note, you're going to want to stretch a bit anytime you have to sit (or stand) for prolonged periods of time, and you need to be much more conscious than usual of your foot position and balance when you do standard movements like getting and in and out of your vehicle, for example. You're most likely to reinjure it in the first few steps of running from a standstill (for the same biomechanical reasons that heavy or jerky leg curls are a problem in the gym). Taking a big step is another thing to watch out for...so if you have to step over something or step up onto something, you should try to lead with your other leg if possible.

Other than that, maybe a good diet and a little extra vitamin c helps in the long run. Also, people who pull muscles sometimes find that taking a potassium supplement helps because potassium deficiency is often a contributing factor in muscle cramps and pulls in general (bananas don't really have enough unless you eat them by the bunch). Dehydration is also related to increased chances of all muscle pulls, so staying well hydrated helps avoid this problem too, especially in warm weather.

<small>[ 05-25-2003, 12:49 PM: Message edited by: ProWritingServices4LEOs ]</small>

[Hemtt]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I totally disagree about heavy leg curls...especially if you already have any history of hamstring pulls. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I did not intend this as a rehab measure, I meant exercising the muscle more in general. I do not know the full story but because soccer is what he is looking forward to I'm assuming he plays a lot. Most heavy soccer players have a lot of imbalance in their legs, that's why they get "Bow" Legged. Kicking and charging work the quads much more than the Hams. I suggested heavy weight because I think the sudden strain of play on the field is more of a "Fast Twich" movement, which is generally worked better with heavy weights as opposed to high reps.
You're right however I should have specified that I was talking about strenthening in general after healing as opposed to rehab. My medical training is marginal at best, I only speak from lots of injuries.

Will Coy

I like soccer too.

[JRT6]

I agree with the Prowriting guy except for the heavy weight causes jerking thing. That's totally up to the person doing the exersise. Legs curls are prone to sloppy technique no matter what the weight. One needs to have the discipline to keep their hips on the bench and the movement smooth. I also think leg curls, prone and seated are an excellent training tool for rehabing a strenghtening the hams. Once one develops a tendency for ham pulls, like me, one will be prone to them forever. I get one almost every year it seems.

I do three sets of supper slow leg curls. Followed by three sets of romanian deadlifts (partial knee bend, only bend till mid shin). The super slow reps on the leg curls work good because I'm already using the whole weight stack plus a a dumbell added on the machine and was pushing in jury trying to do more weight. Super slow is a great way to make a certain weight a lot heavier. My rep range is 12-5.

When your starting your season work into your sprints over a few workouts. Eventhough I run about 10 miles a week or so I don't sprint and when I took the sprint test for my fitness specialist certification recently I had a ham pull from the unacustomed stress to my pull prone hams.

<small>[ 05-09-2003, 03:55 PM: Message edited by: JRT6 ]</small>

[Chief Wiggum]

Thanks for the info all! :D