If you are a sports player and you are looking for how to recover from Hamstring injury, this blog is just for you
Hamstring Injury are frequently seen in sports involving high-speed running, kicking, and sprinting. The hamstrings are the muscle group most commonly affected.
Why Hamstring injury occur :
- Muscle tightness, Muscle imbalance ,Muscle fatigue & Muscle overload can cause Hamstring Injury.
- A hamstring injury often happens during sudden, powerful movements. These include sprinting, lunging, or jumping. Such actions can overstretch your tendons or muscles. The injury can also happen gradually during slower movements.
- Recurring injury is common in athletes and sportsmen. You're more likely to injure your hamstring if you've injured it before.
- Regularly doing stretching and strengthening exercises, and warming up before exercise, may help reduce the risk of injuring your hamstring.
Symptoms of Hamstring Injury :
- You will notice a sudden, sharp pain in the back of your thigh.
- It will cause you to come to a quick stop, and either hop on your good leg or fall.
- Swelling during the first few hours after injury
- Bruising or discoloration
- Weakness in your hamstring muscles.
Types of Hamstring Injury
It's a common injury in athletes and can happen in different severities. The 3 grades of hamstring injury are:
- grade 1 – a mild muscle pull or strain
- grade 2 – a partial muscle tear
- grade 3 – a complete muscle tear
The recovery time from a hamstring strain or tear depends on the severity of the injury.
A minor muscle pull or strain (grade 1) may take a few days to heal. In contrast, recovering from a muscle tear (grade 2 or 3) could take weeks or months.
How Physiotherapy will help in Hamstring Injury :
- Most hamstring strains heal very well with simple, nonsurgical treatment.
- RICE : RICE stands for Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation.
- Rest : Take a break from the activity that caused the strain . avoid putting weight on your leg.
- Ice : Use cold packs for 20 minutes at a time, several times a day.
- Compression: To prevent additional swelling and blood loss, wear an elastic
compression bandage. - Elevation : To reduce swelling, recline and put your leg up higher than your heart while resting.
- Physiotherapy Once the initial pain and swelling has settled down, physical therapy can begin. Specific exercises can restore range of motion and strength.
- A physiotherapy program focuses first on flexibility. Gentle stretches will improve your range of motion. As healing progresses, strengthening exercises will gradually be added to the program.
In the physiotherapy of hamstring muscle injuries you should train movements and muscles according to their specific roles. Get muscles long and strong using eccentric exercises, and use isometrics to increase resistance . Next to this, don’t forget to train the lumbopelvic region and hip muscles to further reduce injury risk.
Dr.Reshma Pawar PT
Dr.Reshma Pawar PT is our Kharghar,Navi Mumbai Area Head. She holds expertise in treating all the musculoskeletal pain issues & sports related injuries.
