Preventing Hamstring Injuries

By Dr. Jeff Schutt, www.houseofspeed.com

Photo by Rick Stewart Getty Images

The spring is a strange season for sports. We have been used to training indoors for the winter and then we go outside for track, baseball, softball and tennis. The athletes' bodies are not acclimated to the weather, which seems to change drastically from day to the next. I heard one weatherman say that "spring temperatures" is like dancing. You take two steps forward then one back. Unfortunately for our athletes, this plays havoc on their muscles. Athletes in general are very poor people for preparing for colder weather. The young athletes especially are so excited to be outside and for winter to be over that they rush it by not wearing sweatshirts or proper warm gear. Because these overly ambitious athletes allow their muscles to get colder than they should, the chance for muscle strain is higher.

The most common muscle injuries that we see during the spring are hamstring and thigh strains along with shin splints. The main thing to do to prevent these injuries is to warm up well. Make sure you have a slight film of sweat on the forehead before starting the workout or competition. If you don't have this light film of sweat on the forehead, you are not really warmed up. If the athlete is afraid that he or she will wear him or herself out by getting a sweat going, then they are not really in shape. If a hamstring strain still occurs then believe it or not one of the main causes may be nutritional.

A few months ago I was speaking with a biochemist friend of mine, Tony Umbdenstock PhD, LNC, CNS. The following is what Dr. Umbdenstock told me concerning his experience with preventing hamstring injuries through nutritional support.

The hamstring is a powerful muscle with a powerful tendon. The hamstring tendon has specialized fibers, which appear to have a similar function to muscles with actin and myosin fibers. Contraction and relaxation is dependant on adequate cellular levels of Magnesium. A shortened hamstring is a result of lack of available nutrients at the cell of the hamstring during performance. Vitamin C with bioflavonoids is a requirement for a healthy hamstring. Dr. Umbdenstock recommends three to six 500 mg tablets a day.

To add to Dr. Umbdenstock's recommendations, at the House of Speed we recommend adequate amounts of water for healthy muscles. One ounce of water for every two pounds of body weight. If you do feel a strain to a muscle, then ice it for 15 minutes and follow that with a warm Epsom salt bath for 15 to 20 minutes. Epsom salts is magnesium sulfate which is a salt that can soak through the skin and helps with relaxing the muscle.

Our injury prevention video shows exercises for strengthening the hamstrings, thighs and shin area to prevent these problems or strengthen them once a problem does occur. One of the first things to do when working to prevent injuries or rehab them once an injury does occur is to understand exactly how the muscles in question work. The hamstrings are actually a group of four muscles that aid the glute muscles in extending or bringing the leg backward. The hamstrings also flex or bend the knee so the heel comes to the buttocks. What many people do not realize is that the hamstrings also rotate the lower leg at the knee joint. Any athlete recovering from a ligament injury in the knee or in preventing such injuries should strengthen the hamstrings in all of these motions.

In the past I have described some of our favorite hamstring exercises such as the glute-ham machine in which the athlete lies face down on a glute-ham machine with the front pad contacting the thigh area and the feet braced under a support stand. The athlete then brings his body from a horizontal position to a vertical position by using the hamstrings only to bend the knee and elevate the body.

The second hamstring exercise is the CMF hamstring or prone hamstring movement. Lay face down on a bench if you are using a CMF or on the floor if you are using surgical tubing or a low pulley. Put a strap around the foot and while keeping the leg straight, lift the whole leg off of the bench or floor so the thigh is off of the ground. While the thigh is off of the ground, then curl the heel to the buttocks. Hold it there for a four count. Make sure to keep the toes pointed up toward the ceiling to isolate the hamstrings as much as possible. Straighten the leg and let the leg come back down to the bench or floor. This would be one repetition. Perform several sets of six repetitions.

To work the rotational component of the hamstring, it is easiest to sit in a chair. Place two fists between the knees to prevent the knees from wobbling back and forth. Have the knee angle at 90 degrees to the shinbone is perpendicular to the floor. Use the heel as the pivot point and rotate the toes in and out while pivoting on the heel. For resistance, place an exercise band around the toe so the rotation can come against some resistance. Again perform about six repetitions of three to four sets.

For shin splints, the best exercise to prevent them is hooking an exercise band around the toes and pulling the toes up toward the shins. For a better workout, we like to use the dard which is device that you can put weights on to get a little more of workout. Every athletic weight room in the world should have a dard in it.

For thigh strains, there are a lot of different exercises to perform such as squats, lunges, knee extensions, etc. Usually if we see a thigh strain it has something to do with a hip flexor muscle which may not be strong enough or is too tight and will lengthen quickly. To strengthen the hip flexor, the speed trainer is a device you can wear while running that increases the resistance for the hip flexor muscles. You can get a less effective workout by simply hooking an exercise band around both of your toes while standing. Simply raise the knee to waist level and hold it there for a four count. Slowly lower the leg and repeat for about 10 repetitions total.

Make sure to stretch all these muscles after each workout to prevent waste products from building up in the muscles that can cause unexpected tightness. If a muscle problem does not go away within a couple of weeks or your competition schedule cannot wait a couple of weeks of rehabbing, then find someone who is certified in a technique called active release. This is one of the best techniques that I have seen for ridding muscle injuries. You can find an active release practitioner in your area by going to www.activerelease.com and plugging your zip code.

The House of Speed's training sessions are designed for athletes involved in any sport. The training focuses on the development of skills and uses specific conditioning exercises to enhance the one quality an athlete needs most...speed.

House of Speed is led by President Don Beebe, 9-year NFL veteran, and Vice President Dr. Jeff Schutt. For more information, visit their website here.