hamstring tendinosis...does it ever go away?

Is it possible for you to describe the hip exercises you did, or link to a youtube video? Congratulations on finally getting rid of the pain in the butt!

Attach the strap to a fixed object about 1-2 feet to the left of your body. Lift your left foot under your own power. The strap should provide resistance as the foot is raised and the hip rotates externally.

After the external rotation, then turn yourself around so that strap is attached to a fixed object about 1-2 feet to the right of your body. Now lift the left foot out and up for internal rotation.

Does this make sense?

great article and exercises here. i don't think it ever goes away completely but follwing this has kept it under control enough so i can actually train for something.

http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=25112

Dear John,

Now that you are 3 1/2 years out from your stem cell procedure, can you tell me:

1. Did the benefits persist? Are you still able to run without pain, sit without pain, etc.? I have had PRP to the proximal hamstring tendons and it made things worse, so I am interested in treatment that might have persistent benefits.

2. Did you have any side effects from the procedure? My physician is very concerned that I might develop a tumor at the site the stem cells are injected. I did not see any research indicating this could occur, but she felt that stem cell therapy isn't well enough studied to say there is not a risk of tumor development. I am interested to know if you had any very bad long-term side effects like that.

Thanks much!

Ann

I've had pain in my upper hamstring for a few months and it won't seem to go away. But, unlike others, it only hurts when i run or bend my knee. Do you think i have the same thing and can it be treated the same way?:/

I slightly tore/badly strained my hamstring in a bike accident. It took about two years for most of the pain to go away and then I had a couple of subsequent flare-ups when I quit doing strengthening exercises or started into some high intensity interval training.

When I first injured it I took about two months off running and did some biking and swimming cross training. The biking did not seem to affect it at all. Swimming breaststroke kick with a kickboard felt like I was noticeably weak in the injured leg and seemed to be very good rang of motion and initial stengthening exercise. My principal pain and area of inflammation seemed to be at the top of the hamstring. There was a dull pain in my butt soon after I started sitting at work or driving. I tried a couple of things and found that sitting with a racquet ball under the tender spot (tried a tennis ball-too large, and a golf ball-too hard) relieved some of the ache.

Initially I also tried some ART. A couple of years earlier I had some ART for an Achilles problem and it was like a magical cure after the first couple of treatments. ART did nothing to improve my hamstring.

Strengthening exercises and careful stretching seemed to be the best treatment for the problem after lots of trial and error. For me I ended up with a routine of doing one-legged squats with no weights, walking lunges, and squats with a 75lb bar. When I slack off the strengthening work and just start running hard I seem to get a recurrence of some inflammation. It took a full 2 years to get it right after it was injured.

I have had this injury for years. The injury seems at bay " knock wood", but I continue to treat as a preventative measure and to continue to "normalize" that tendon.

So long as time is your friend, I have included modalities I have experience with.

The newest thing I have been experimenting with is Myfascial cupping glide technique. I bought 2 cups on Amazon and have been finding it promising.

Other things: If you can stand the headaches are Nitroglycerin stickers. Works

DMSO( alone or with EMU oil)- Works, especially with ultrasound

Active release and or any form of fascia stretching - Works

Eccentrics, including reverse dead lifts and Nordic hamstring curls- Works

regular Full Squats- Help big time. Works

excorpial(sp?) shock waves therapy-I had 6 total treatments last year. Hard to tell as it remains a long term treatment.

No to stretching, makes it worse.

Ice does nothing.

Dry needling- not sure if it helps, but doesn't hurt.

Would consider if it gets bad again- PRP injection. This I believe helped my rotator cuff tendinitis.

Hope this helps and good luck! This injury is more a disease than an injury and remains a very common problem for especially seasoned runners. Think it's like "Cauliflower Ear" that wrestlers get. Perhaps I might call it "Cauliflour hamstring".

I know that when you're hurt you try everything.

If you haven't already read the Fredrickson paper on HHT, it would be beneficial to do so. Looking at page 2, you'll note that he specifically mentions an anterior pelvic tilt, and that it was more pronounced on the injured side; this is what I zeroed in on.

Using this Video as a starting place, I've been doing the following stretch/exercise- and it's provided some relief.

Now my injured hammy was the Right, so I'll explain the exercise in terms of working on the right leg.

1) Lie on edge of bed so you are able to drop your left leg off the edge.

2) Hook right arm around your right elbow-pit is facing your knee-pit.

3) In the same motion i) pull your Right knee towards the space to the right of your head (as opposed to hugging your knee to your shoulder)

ii) keeping your Left leg straight, push the back of your Left knee down towards the ground.

4) Hold for 5-10 sec and release for 10

5) repeat but go deeper into the stretch.

You should feel this in the abductors, but it should feel as if your hip is being pulled out of the socket and that the right side of your pelvis is being pulled down and away; you are forcing the pelvis out of it's up-locked position.

I think the mechanism of having an overly pronounced anterior pelvic tilt results in the hamstring being over stretched even in it's new neutral position putting extra stress on the tendons at the insertion.

But I'm not a doctor, biomechanisist nor a physical therapist, and so I'll leave my conjecture at that.

This isn't a magic bullet, it's just one piece of the puzzle.

I currently have the same problem. A partial tear in the tendon right at the ischeal tuberosity with mild tendonitis confirmed by MRI. I have been suffering with this frustrating injury for going on 6 minths now. Can any of you tell me how things turned out? What worked/not worked. I just now stopped my PT exercises and stretches to try something different. But not sure what the best thing to do is. I had to cancel several races and I am so upset about this injury. I tore mine waterskiing.

Mine took forever--slipped on ice when running downhill in Canada. I found all the treatment modalities useless; they never let the thing heal. What helped was getting really thin and not overstriding. I found complete rest less helpful than lightly ambling for 30 minutes. Rehab and cross training only keep me inflamed for most injuries. But ART is the most useful for me.

AmyWantsToRunAgain wrote:

I currently have the same problem. A partial tear in the tendon right at the ischeal tuberosity with mild tendonitis confirmed by MRI. I have been suffering with this frustrating injury for going on 6 minths now. Can any of you tell me how things turned out? What worked/not worked. I just now stopped my PT exercises and stretches to try something different. But not sure what the best thing to do is. I had to cancel several races and I am so upset about this injury. I tore mine waterskiing.

I'm 16 months in. I've been doing ART and strengening exercises since the last flare up again. Foam roller and no stretching. Day to day pain has subsided but I haven't run in 2 1/2 weeks. I sit on the wood floor more than I sit on the couch and use heat for pain relief.

My PT is confident that we are on the cusp of fixing this.

The last couple weeks have been rough and I thought I might not ever be able to run and have this pain for life but my PT slapped me out of that.

AmyWantsToRunAgain wrote:

I currently have the same problem. A partial tear in the tendon right at the ischeal tuberosity with mild tendonitis confirmed by MRI....

I have the same thing- hurt it 1 1/2 yrs ago, went through periods of treatment vs. resting, while continuing to run. I finally got to a point the past few months (and after getting an MRI that confirmed I had indeed partially torn the hamstring tendon), where I had rested it enough I needed to work on strengthening and stretching it back to normal. This was rough at first-- highly inflamed and sore. For the past 2-3 months, I've been consistently doing strengthening exercises. It's not 100%, but very very close. I also got ART done with my chiropractor, which helped a bunch. Here's what I do:

The above is one of the best resources. There's a picture of the supine plank. When I first tried this, I could hardly do it on my injured side! I started doing this and holding it to the point of fatigue. Make sure your knee is straight and you don't let your hips drop. I would do this a few times, and then also ~once on the good side (to balance it out).

Also, in that link is pictures of the single-leg ham ball curls. You can look on Youtube if you need a video on how to do this. I work my injured leg over and over again to the point of fatigue. I do it slowly and controlled. Rest, and do it 2 more time. I do this 3-4x/week.

Then, what I've found is key is doing dynamic, eccentric strengthening exercises that get the hamstring muscles to "glide". It's not just the hamstring tendon you need to be working, but the whole muscle-- functionally going through repetitious ~squatting, deadlifts, and bridging exercises.

This has already been cited:

I like the Hamstring Bridge, Squat (air squats, non-weighted), and Hamstring Squat. I've progressed back to doing my original strength training routine, that includes Dumbbell Squats (I use dumbbells on the shoulders rather than a bar/rack), Split Squats with dumbbells, Romanian Deadlifts (heavy weights), and Bentover Rows. If you don't know how to squat properly (~weight on your heels), you should work with a professional. Rather that count the number of reps, I do these exercises repetitiously to fatigue and ~3 sets. Do 2x/week. It's the constant "gliding" from doing this repetitiously with weights that has really helped my hamstring and get it "unstuck".

Split stiff legged deadlifts. start with 1/2 bodyweight and move up to 90% body weight.

If you can't do half body weight you have major strength issues that need to be resolved.

I can't comment on hamstring specifically, but over the winter I had a strained calf, bad achilles tendonitis and posterior shin splints, as well as anterior shin splints for a while.

It took months to go away, and even now the ankle joint is still stiff, but I basically didn't run until it was better. I took 2 weeks off at first after a physio appointment and some sports massage, but then had pain when I came back, so after 3 days back running i had to stop. It got to the point that it hurt just to walk, and I was so frustrated with not being able to run, that I stopped. I did cycle machine, cross trainer, swimming and rowing intensively for a month or 6 weeks after that, so in total like 2 months off running completely, and then when I cam back I did like 1 minute jog, 1 minute walk for 20 minutes, then 2 minutes, 3 minutes etc. for about 2 weeks, before moving up to like 10 minutes, 20 etc.

I had in total about 3 hours of PT/sports massage, including acupuncture (even when I started running), and it as all very helpful. Taping is also amazing, I don't know if it would work as well for hamstring, but KT tape for my achilles/shins, just kept on for 5 days at a time, running or not, was a lifesaver.

I was also icing, using foam roller/stick, anti-inflammatory gel at the beginning. Physio thought it was probably some hip/glute imbalance, so I was doing low rep/high weight 1 legged gym work, and that was very helpful. However, I got lucky that I didn't tear the muscle/achilles, and it sounds like you could have a tear, which is going to be a problem for much longer, if not forever, I think. I would stop doing things like deadlifts, get acupuncture and regular sports massage, as well as rolling or using the stick 3 or 4 times a day, with ice, and just lay off the running completely for a month at least and see how it goes.

Good luck!

Check out this article; it's pretty good:

http://marsblackandgesso.com/post/97128629884/an-18-month-relationship-with-high-hamstring-tendinitis

I use and run SRC4U with good results.

Google SRC4U.

I am not an affiliate nor I have any financial gain.

They give the program /software for few days to try it. Try! :)

Good way to roll out upper hamstring in latter stages of recovery..... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/06/foam-rolling-exercises-rules_n_4213279.html

I got a hamstring injury and I couldn't sit in a chair without a pain under the thigh.

I found out that walking up the stairs was putting pressure on the injury and not letting it heal.

After a couple of weeks of not walking up stairs the pain went away.

There is still some tightness when doing leg curls though.

I also have hamstring tendinosis. I was diagnosed at the end of May and have had it these past 4 months. I'm beyond frustrated and am losing hope. I'm also severely depressed. I miss running so much it hurts. I also miss Yoga. I was diagnosed via MRI with bone marrow edema in my ischial tuberosity(sitting bone) as well as a thickened tendon in my high hamstring. However--there are no tears or anything--so at least that's good. I feel like I've tried everything. I haven't ran since May--I've only been walking very gently--about 4 miles a day outside and sometimes swimming gently and that's it. And it's not gotten any better at all.

I can walk slowly--but as soon as I start speed walking it aches; if I bend over and reach for my toes--agony; when I bend over to pull my pants and shoes on--it aches; an when I kick a little faster swimming it pulls and aches.

I got one round of PRP and it did absolutely nothing. I'm considering doing another round of PRP as well as possibly ultrasound therapy and ART.

Did you ever find anything that worked for you? This is the longest lasting injury I've ever had and it feels like it's never going to get better. Just wondering what your experiences has been thus far.