A Surprising Number Of Problems Arise From Tight Hamstrings

Have you ever experience a hamstring strain? Do you know how unsafe it can be? One of the common groups of people to go through hamstring injuries, are athletes who indulge in sports that involve jumping and explosive sprinting. In addition of hamstring injuries, they can be very frustrating to deal and treat with. The hamstrings are composing of tendons that attach three large muscles, the biceps femoris, semitendinosus, and semimembranosus. These three muscles helps one knee to bend and extend to his or her hip; however, when one or more of these muscles gets stretched too far and starts to tear, it may cause plenty of pain due to the pulled hamstring.

As explained by Opar (3) the hamstring consists of three muscles, biceps femoris (BF), semitendinosus (ST) semimembranosus (SM), this composes a muscle group crossing the hip and knee joint that acts synergistically in extending the hip and flexing the knee.

What is a hamstring strain? According to Mayo Clinic, "A hamstring strain is a sharp pain that occurs up the back of your leg, also known as your hamstring." Swelling and tenderness will begin to appear within a few hours, however, bruising is a common experience within a strain, additionally not being able to apply weight onto the injured leg. You can treat a strain at home. Nevertheless, you should visit a doctor when if it grows unbearable to walk on your injured leg.

A pulled hamstring are injuries to three groups of muscles in the back of the thigh. The muscle is not very widely used when a person is standing or walking.

Studies have also shown that women in particular, unfortunately have a disadvantage in life when compared to male counterparts, and that is one pertaining to their higher risk for ACL injury. Due to a neuromuscular imbalance that is concomitant with overactive quadriceps strength compared to hamstring strength, females tend to place more stress on the ACL. Accordingly, this increases the pressure on the ACL leading to a higher prevalence of injury that will arise more on the female spectrum than that of the male (Myer et al., 2009). Furthermore, this is important to be aware of for female athletes and for the Physical Therapists who treat them in efforts to provide educational information regarding the relationship of stronger hamstrings correlating to a lesser chance of ACL injury. Personally, I have worked with athletic females in the past as a personal trainer and while I was not strengthening hamstrings with the direct objective to prevent an ACL injury, I was cognizant of the notion that a balanced quadriceps and hamstring ratio was necessary to avoid lower extremity injuries as a

A hamstring is comprised of a group of three muscles that can be found along the back of the thigh. These muscles allow the range of motion at the knee, which gives the ability to bend the leg. The three hamstring muscles include semitendinosus, semimbranosus, and biceps femoris. The hamstrings work concentrically to flex the knee, extend the hip, and rotate the tibia (Prentice, 2015).

Intervention: Group 1: Participants in-group 1 will perform hamstrings resisted exercise using protonics brace. Group 2: Subjects in-group 2 will perform hamstrings resisted exercise using sport cord. Both groups will perform the exercise 3 times a week, 3 sets a day; each set is 10 repetitions for 4 weeks.

The biceps femoris is one of the three muscles including the semitendinosus, and the semimembranosus, that make up the group of muscles called the hamstrings. The hamstrings are located on the posterior side of the leg. The biceps femoris originates on the ischial tuberosity and inserts on the head of the fibula. The movement of the biceps femoris is responsible for the flexion of the knee and the external rotation of the lower leg. Flexion of the knee happens when the back of the foot is raised toward the back of the leg.

Ask any football player if they have ever had a hamstring injury and most of them will say yes. Why do hamstring injuries happen? Is it because of the anatomy of the hip and pelvis or is it because they are not stretching it enough? Another possibility that causes hamstring and injuries is the muscles are getting overworked. The muscles around those might not be getting worked as well as they should be either. Hamstring injuries happen because they are not stretched well enough.

Hamstring strain injuries are one of the most common sport related injuries involving high speed, kicking movements (Marc. A., et al 2004). Despite there being evidence that hamstring strains occur at both stages of movements; the early stance phase where the muscle absorbs the most force as a result of high ground reaction and the late swing phase, the hamstrings eccentrically contract to absorb the kinetic energy and slow the lower limb putting the hamstrings under a large amount of stress (Schmitt. B., et al 2012)

“The hamstrings and quadriceps are important to the stability of the knee joint. When there is a deficit in the strength of a hamstring, in comparison to that of quadriceps, an athlete is more likely to be predisposed to an ACL injury” (Krick, 2001, pg. 5). “Female, athletes in specific, rely heavily on their quadriceps to jump and pivot, therefore, a female’s quadriceps are stronger than their hamstrings. Because female athletes heavily rely on their quadriceps more, it reduces their knee stability” (Krick, 2001, pg. 6).

It is an exceptionally regular confusion that if hamstrings feel tight, they should be short and needing extending .The individual will then continue in extending them, and ask why they continue feeling tight notwithstanding their earnest attempts.

In a prospective randomized controlled trial Askling (2014) compared the effectiveness of lengthening exercises program and conventional exercises program on rehabilitation of acute hamstring injury. Forty-six Swedish sprinters and 10 jumpers with hamstring injuries confirmed by MRI were recruited and assigned unsystematically to lengthening exercises protocol (L-protocol) or conventional exercises protocol (C-protocol). The outcome measurements that used in this study were the number of day to return to sport and the rate of re-injury during 12 months. All participants were evaluated for flexibility and strength, using manual assessment, within two days post injury, and Askling H-test was used at the end of he rehabilitation before allowing athletes to return to sport.

Sherry et al (2004) combared the effectivness of two rehablitation programes in treatment of acute hamestring straines using time required to return to play and recurent of injury in the first two weeks and within the first-yeare as mesurments. Twenty-four prticipantes were recuruated and allocated randomly to group one (STST) which incloud static stretching, isolated progressive hamstring resistance exercise, and icing and group two (PATS) which consists from progressive agility and trunk stabilization exercises and icing. The treatment protocols were divided into two phase in both groups and the subjects progressed from stage one to stage two when they could perform high knee march in place without pain as well as walking with the same stride length and stance time on both injured and uninjured leg. Additionally, the athletes were allowed to return to play if they exhibited 5/5 manual muscle strength of knee flexion, had no tenderness with

     Before going right into a stretching routine, it is good to know exactly what you are doing to your muscles fibers and tendons. First of all, our muscles are made up of many little fibers called myofilaments. As a muscle contracts, the area of overlap between the different sizes of myofilaments increases. As it stretches, this area of overlap decreases, allowing the muscle fibers to lengthen. Once the muscle is stretched to its limit, additional length is gained through the surrounding tissues. As the tension increases, the fibers in this tissue align themselves along the same line of force as the tension. Hence when you stretch, the muscle fiber is pulled out to its full length, and the connective tissue takes up the remaining slack. When this occurs, it helps to realign any disorganized fibers in the direction of the tension. Doing this not only increases the range of motion, but it also helps to heal damaged tissue in the muscles and tendons. When a muscle is stretched, some of its fibers lengthen, but others do not. The length of the entire muscle depends on the number of stretched fibers. This is also true when a muscle is