recovering from sore hamstring

You don't "recover" from a sore hamstring. There's something fundamentally wrong with your muscle balance that is causing your hamstring to be sore in the first place, and until you fix that, it'll keep coming back. To summarize:

1) you probably did too much speed too soon - if you have sufficient base mileage your muscle imbalances will typically sort themselves out through sufficient running so you don't get hamstring pain

2) most hamstring issues happen when there is an imbalance between your hamstrings and either your quads or your glutes

Solutions:

1) slow down your runs and do more miles - this is the safest, but slowest way to fix your issue. since you are already running "fast", it'll suck to have to slow everything down again, but it's an option and the safest option

2) see a trainer, or very carefully work on strengthening your legs through weight training.

3) Plyos, strides and hill running - again, be careful not to overdue it, but will develop muscle which will eventually correct your imbalance

4) Stretch at least 3 times a day

I did do two speed workouts this week and they were tough. I'm planning on doing a lower body workout tomorrow and I do stretch a lot I even roll my legs out every night. The pain just started today this morning and it felt very tight after my 800 race. I plan on running hills this weekend and taking tomorrow very easy since I'll be working out my lower body.

Former D: I always get sore hamstrings when we begin the anaerobic speed based phase of track season, no matter how many slow miles I put in before that. Any way to prevent it?

You should have done strides and some fartleks/hills during your base phase.

You went from running slow in base to running very fast. Your hamstrings aren't ready for that amount of stress. Your quads/glutes can handle it since they are more durable muscle groups but your hamstrings can't.

It's time to do some catching up with strengthening exercises. Plyos and strides. Tons of stretching. It could take you weeks to get your hammys up to speed.

It needs ice and rest, you'll end up pulling it and then you could be out for 3-4 weeks.

I just recovered from a MILDLY sore/tight hamstring. I developed it in the fall and just now it is nearly 95%, while I'm peaking for some spring races.

It never hurt while running, or when it did, it eased up after a few miles. Pain was at the attachment site (at the butt).

What ultimately fixed it was:

1. Stretch your hamstrings lying on your back. This puts your pelvis in the correct position for stretching your hamstring. Grab a towel or resistance band, hook it around your foot. Stretch your hamstring with leg straight, and with leg slightly bent, 60s each, both legs, erry day. The reason this is important is running can cause a muscle/flexibility imbalance between quads and hamstrings. (quads are tight and strong, hamstrings flexible and weak). This makes you develop an anterior pelvic tilt. Stretching your hamstring while lying on your back means you stretch your hamstring with proper pelvic alignment.

2. Strengthening. Do REGULAR squats. Not romanian ones (these ones keep your hamstring fully stretched during part of the lift. Fully stretched + bearing weight = further injury). Also do HAMSTRING CURLS. Lying on your stomach, lift with both legs. Also do all other basic weight exercises helpful for running (dead lifts, lunges, etc.). Do 1-2x/week.

3. ART (Active Release Therapy). This is essentially massage + stretching, designed to remove muscle adhesions. You may need to see a physio, but a helpful spouse can do this for you. Do 1x/week. Not sure if ART helps this specific condition or not, but deep tissue massage is supposed to help with hamstring attachment soreness.

I've been dealing with this off and on for years. In my early 50s and I'm only running a few times a week, trying to get under 20:00 for 5k. I'll go through a nice period of feeling good then when I try to stretch things out running, fast--which for me is about 6:30 pace--I get what I thought was a strained hamstring in one leg or the other. Couple of weeks off, stretch, strength work, ice, and build up again.

Lately I've been wondering if what I'm experiencing is a muscle cramp or spasm brought on in part by poor diet/low electrolytes. Anybody have experience with this?

Hills.

So you recommend doing hills on sore hamstrings.. ? You sure that's a good idea

bridges. lay on your back in bridge position. pull the left knee to your chest and use your right foot and glue to push the right hip up. do these until your butt burns. you should also feel your hip stretching. this will help loosen up the hams.

on the hills...yes. but not when it's too sore to run normally. hills don't allow you to stride out as far so they are a bit safer than running on the flats.

majorkey wrote:

So you recommend doing hills on sore hamstrings.. ? You sure that's a good idea

Of course not. I was answering this question.

Former D: I always get sore hamstrings when we begin the anaerobic speed based phase of track season, no matter how many slow miles I put in before that. Any way to prevent it?

This is good advice, but you should be very conservative about stretching. Talk to your trainer about this for details, but basically you should stretch ONLY to the point it begins to feel tight. You should ideally stretch only after the muscles have been warmed up by a few minutes of easy jogging. If you stretch too hard, you can tear the tissue where the muscle is trying to heal and the healing process has to start over from day one.

The best approach is to limit all speedwork, avoid hills, and run slower for a couple of weeks. This will limit the range of motion so you can keep running while the hamstring heals. If you try to do fast intervals or fast tempos before it heals, you re-tear the tissue and the healing must start over from day one.

Lots of running have hamstring injuries that linger for months because they don't have the discipline to restrict speed and running until the hamstring heals.

Yeah I been stretching and rolling my hamstring I took today off and will run a couple laps on a soccer field tomorrow barefoot.. I have league finals in 2 weeks so I really need to recover asap.

majorkey wrote:

I had one of my worst races today because of my sore hamstring.. my stride was short and I felt like crap. How do you guys recover from this? I haven't experienced this kind of soreness on race weeks.

Beware of keeping muscles tense while running. That will accentuate any problems and we usually do it when something is wrong, like hamstrings in your case.

If you do strength or speed training while facing hamstring soreness, is unlikely to ease the tightness.

Stretching with tense muscles is also a way to accentuate that soreness.

The solution to many problems is the Myrtle routine.

If you include it in your warm up, you will be saved from many problems.

Just jog 10-20 minutes, then do the standing up exercises, as shown after the half of this video:

This should become a standard in your warm up.

I've seen the results in dozens of people and it works great.

Good luck!

It feels better now.. I jogged yesterday and just stretched the entire weekend & iced. Should I take it easy today at practice and foam roll before? I'm also going to ice right after practice.

majorkey wrote:

It feels better now.. I jogged yesterday and just stretched the entire weekend & iced. Should I take it easy today at practice and foam roll before? I'm also going to ice right after practice.

Think at your muscles just like at rubber.

When they are cold, they won't be flexible enough to change their form.

So pay attention when you do stretching, because its goal is to soften the muscles.

Isn't very useful to do some work around the house and now and then to stretch a muscle.

The soreness doesn't go right away, but when is happening, can take 3-5 days to disappear.

Perhaps would be wise to have a bit patience now and get used with those stand up exercises from the Myrtl routine, because they should become part of your warm up.

Regarding the ice, in my opinion is not a long term solution. I consider it a last resort solution and shouldn't be something common.

I did those warm-up stretches from the video they actually worked and today in practice i cut my stride to focus on cadence and it felt good running.