Ouch, hamstring pain! That stark realisation you may have pulled your hamstring! Do you carry on hoping it goes away? Do you walk back home or call for help? Will you rest or try again the next day to run through it?
If you’ve experienced a sharp, stabbing pain in your hamstring then take caution and take some advice before you try to run through it. Do you try to run through it? Take caution as you may make things worse and end up with a more serious injury for longer.
This injury may come as a blow to your training and the mental impact of time out will be more than you realise. If so, read my post on coping with an injury from a mental health point of view.
What is that sharp hamstring pain?
Firstly, I’m not a medical professional so I’m only giving advice from a high-level point of view. I recommend you seek professional advice for any rehabilitation that can be tailored to your specific injury.
The sharp pain in your hamstring. The hamstring is made up of 3 main muscles and not surprisingly can take a lot of load throughout the day. When you’re running, walking, sitting down so your hamstrings are continually overworked and overloaded. A pull happens when you force or stretch a muscle too far or too fast, and in the hamstring’s case the severity is graded as follows:
- Grade I: a mild muscle strain. Recommended recovery is days to 3 weeks.
- Grade II: a partial muscle tear.
- Grade III: a complete muscle tear or tear of an attachment – may take weeks or months to heal.
Rehabilitation
As above, you should seek professional advice to accurately assess the extent of your hamstring strain. A few tips you should immediately follow though:
- Do not stretch your affected hamstring, this will only make it worse.
- This includes foam rolling, do not do this either.
- Apply ice to the affected area (bag of peas) and put your feet up ? 10-15 minutes every hour for the firs day.
- Advice is varied on if you should take anti-inflammatories (ibuprofen) so take caution – I do.
- Book in with your chiropractor if you have one. Research and ask for recommendations if you don’t.
- Rest for at least a day, and try not to use it until the pain has gone away.
- Once the pain has done/lessened, the general recommendation is to gently stretch the muscle. Stop if you feel any pain though.
- When you can stretch pain-free then look to do a short 1-minute run, build from there.
One great piece of advice would be to review your training and habits. Try to identify the reason for your injury. Did you run too far for your current fitness? Or have you been pushing the pace too much? Do you warm-up and or stretch regularly? If you can reflect and identify factors leading to your injury it will help when you’re back fit and running ?
So I can’t run, what can I do?!
If the hamstring pain is too much to run on, try one that will put less stress on your hamstrings. Walking, cycling and swimming are low-impact exercises that will keep you in shape as you recover. This is all in context to your specific injury so find what works for you. Unless you prefer the sedentary lifestyle then relax ?
Hamstring pain re-Injury rate
Be careful with those hamstrings! Over 60% of runners that strain their hamstring will injure it again within a year. That means more hamstring pain and more time away from running ? My advice, build in a maintenance and stretching routine to help strengthen the surrounding muscles like your hips, glutes, and abs to prevent future strains. If you’re unsure where to start, speak with a chiropractor or running coach or may be able to identify weaknesses to focus on.
For some basic injury prevention advice, see my post on good practices :-)
Remember, don’t let the injury get you down! Plan to come back stronger and take lessons from it ?
