Strained my hamstring bad. What can do to crosstrain?

1. Rest it completely for 3 days, icing every chance you get for 20 min increments. Aim for 5-8 times of icing per day.

2. Depending on your medical background, take a couple of antiinflammatories twice a day for each of these 3 days.

3. Starting 3rd day, lay off the antiinflammatories, continue the icing, and if you can walk without pain, begin walking 15-20 min. casually. Do 1 to 2 times a day for another 3 days.

4. Continue icing the second week, but now begin alternating 15min ice with 15min heat therapy. Aim for 4-6 of these "treatment" sessions a day. Continue the walking, but now shoot for 30-45min of walking for the next 6-day cycle. The hammy does take a while to fully heal (months actually), but once it begins the healing process the strength comes back fairly quickly with the right activities.

5. Starting the 3rd week of treatment, in addition to the ice/heat therapy (you should continue this) and 30-45 min daily walks, begin incorporating strengthening exercises with VERY light weights. DO NOT DO STRAIGHT LEG DEAD LIFTS!! Sorry for the all-caps, but it really is that serious. Focus on doing eccentric double leg hamstring curls during this period. Eventually you want to progress to doing single leg exercises, but your leg is still injured at this point and needs the added support/help from your other healthy leg. Again, depending on your background, don't try to lift more than 25-30lbs with hammy curls (8-12 reps). Be patient and save the high reps for later on; low weight, low reps right now. Add walking lunges (don't touch the ground with your knee; think "half lunge"), leg extensions (double legs), and inner/outer thigh exercises. Do core exercises daily; twice if you have the time.

6. Continue the 6-day treatment cycle, gradually increasing the reps and then later the weight. For example, when you can easily do 3 sets of 12 hamstring curls with no pain/strain, increase to 15 reps, leaving the weight the same. No matter how easy it is, do not increase the weight at this point. After 6 days of this higher rep exercise, increase the weight from 30 to about 40 lbs. Again, the idea is to gradually increase the weight/strength of this muscle group so you can lower the reps back to 8-12 at this point. Do this with the other exercises as well for another 12 days now. (You are still icing 5 times a day, for more focus on the heat/massage therapy at this point.) If you have access to stim, this works a lot with the healing/strengthening process.

7. Do 6 again, gradually increasing the weight for as long as you need until you can easily/smoothly do 4 sets of 85-100lbs of double leg hamstring curls. Obviously, you have to consider your weight lifting history. But the overall idea is to get the hamstring as strong and as flexible as possible. By this point, hopefully your pain-free and able to jog a bit without any pain at all.

If you noticed, I haven't incorporated any stretches. Reason? You shouldn't stretch an injured hamstring until it's fairly healthy again. Stretching can (and normally does) lead to several microtears in the muscle that slows healing, recovery, and weakens this muscle. It also speeds the accumulation of scar tissue.

8. After you've completed 7, begin jogging on a treadmill. Go as slow as you need to for your official post-injury comeback.

Dude, thanks for the great info. What can I do to keep an aerobic base?

Can you substitute swimming for the water running? Backstroke or back float may allow you to retain aerobic fitness without putting pressure on the hamstrings.

You got some pretty good help from piedmont cat. I would add to that:

1. Get the hamstring to the point where it is comfortable before you do any aerobic training again. Maybe do some circuits in the weight room before then, but try not to stress the hamstring yet. It's not worth reaggravating the thing and setting yourself back another week or two.

2. As you do go back to aerobic workouts, make sure you go back in compression shorts, the tighter the better. That will help stabilize the muscle and help prevent further aggravation of the injury.

3. You can do things like bicycling (sometimes even with clips, but be careful), running up stairs, and such before you get back to regular running. Regular running stresses the hamstring in a way that running up stairs does not--found that one out when I had a hamstring injury. Don't try to run 10 miles your first time back, listen to your body. Be patient.

One more thing, if you sense you have scar tissue build-up in your hamstring (and you probably will after a good tear heals), a visit or two to someone who does active release is probably worth the investment.

Shredded Hammy wrote:

Dude, thanks for the great info. What can I do to keep an aerobic base?

Honestly, forget about the aerobic base at this point. I know my stance is contrary to what others say about cross-training, but I haven't found any form of cross training that allows you to maintain a solid base while not aggravating the hamstring. Even swimming (which is a great aerobic activity) slows the hamstring healing process on some level. Meaning, the level of work you have to put in the pool to maintain your aerobic base is not worth the strain you'll constantly place on your hams.

I know this isn't what you might want to hear, but ditch the aerobic talk when trying to rehab an injured hamstring. Think anaerobic/power/strength/range of motion. Once you've pulled/strained a hamstring, you literally have to reteach that entire muscle group how to "fire off" without blowing up (repulling). Easy, slow, more aerobic activities can't accomplish this. Speed drills, dynamic range of motion exerises, sprints, and plyos helps a TON but won't give you that aerobic base you're looking for. Again, you would only incorporate these after several weeks of work in the gym and after the muscle is about 90% healed. You have to get healthy (primary goal) again before transitioning back over to slower, more aerobic activities. As a matter of fact, it's been my experience that coming back from the opposite direction (speed first...endurance later) has been the key to fully recovering from these types of injuries.

Lastly, as the other poster mentioned, massage therapy is great. Particularly, cross friction (active release is too aggressive in my experience) works wonders with breaking up/preventing scar tissue development and (most importantly) help the torn fibers "realign" properly without knotting up and only allowing you to run 3 wks before you reinjure the area. Ask someone in your area about cross friction massage therapy.

this happened to me this spring and i missed ALOT OF TIME

get to a physical therapist or a massage guy immediately and have them work on it..

3-4 sessions and it will be gone!!! tough tough massage on it will hurt but help in the end.. also some strengthening

I would hold off on the eccentric exercises until you can do 20 or so reps of regular HS curls. Since you are a long distance runner (I'm assuming) I would try to go more than 10-12 reps. I did a number on my hamstring last october and the PT that I worked with told me I should begin with 2-3 sets of 10-12 reps but as I got stronger I should focus more on doing reps to fatigue- as long as you have NO PAIN or strain while doing them. You should first work on regular hamstring curls, then eccentrics, then maybe some ballistic stuff (but that will take a while). Make sure when you are doing hamstring curls to do them 3 ways- with foot rotated inward, foot straight forward, and foot rotated forward...but keep the weight low especially the first time. This is where I really struggled. Once your strength is back you can try Russian hamstring curls with a partner holding your ankles but NO PAIN. You can also try hamstring curls on a stability ball but you cant skip steps here. First get general strength back before trying all these fancy things.

My PT also emphasized core strength. Lots of planks. I also did back extensions on a stability ball.

I also did a lot of glute/low back exercises. Bridges (laying on back with knees bent, lift butt up), donkey kicks (on all fours, keeping back flat and kicking heel straight up in the air with a bent knee), hip extension with resistance from a band or on a machine.

As for cardio- the first week I hurt it I remember asking the PT if I Could bike, she said, yes you can bike...easy...for 10 minutes max. I didn't just because I knew it would frustrate me. You should ride a stationary bike just for range of motion and to gently stretch. Keep the seat relatively low, DONT go all out, dont pull up on the pedals. Go easy.

I also did a lot of walking, and especially walking backwards on the treadmill, making sure to extend back fully. I also did backwards elliptical but only for 5-10 min at a time. I did a lot of elliptical 30-40 minutes at a time, switching directions every 5-10 minutes.

I tried to run too early and really f-ed things up. I think I would have came back stronger and better if I just canned the running for a while and focused on getting better. Here I am in August and my hamstring is still hurting just sitting here. I can run now and it rarely gives me pain while running (I just did some quick 200's last night, no problems), but every now and then you get a little zing that will scare the shit out of you. I didn't get back to real training for a good 12-14 weeks after I hurt it. BE CAREFUL!!! It's a tricky injury and you don't realize how much you use your hamstring until you bust it!