hamstring hotspot

If you’ve ever had a hamstring injury, I’m sure you would like to prevent that from happening again.  Most hamstring strains will keep you out of training for an average of 18 days.  SCJ Vol. 30:1, 2008.  The athletes who are most exposed to hamstring injuries are those who play soccer, rugby, track and field, and football.  Hamstring injuries usually occur when the hamstring is active and lengthened at the same time.  During running or kicking a ball, the hamstring is lengthened as the leg swings forward and the knee is extended.  This action puts the muscle in a position where it is susceptible to injury.

One of the best methods of preventing muscle injury is to strengthen the muscle through a large range of motion.  For the three hamstring muscles including the biceps femoris, semitendonosis, and semimembranosis, knee flexion needs to be strengthened.  To complete the strengthening of the biceps femoris, hip extension also needs to be addressed.  The fact that the hamstrings cross two joints, the hip and knee joint, provides more opportunities for strengthening, but it also allows a greater An effective way to lengthen and strengthen your muscles is with eccentric contractions.  An eccentric contraction is contracting the muscle while it is lengthening.

Two exercises that produce this type of contraction are Nordic Hamstring Curls and Deadlifts.  Nordic Hamstring Curls keep your hip joint neutral while eccentrically contracting the three hamstring muscles from the knee joint.  The Deadlift eccentrically contracts the biceps femoris from the hip joint while the knee is stable.  These exercises should be added to your other hamstring exercises once or twice a week in the preseason and gradually decrease in frequency as you progress to in-season.  When these eccentric movements get easier, you can add weight or increase the speed of the exercise, but this needs to be a gradual increase in order to prevent injury.  Eccentric contractions are an effective way to make your muscles more resistant to injury and help injuries that do occur to be less severe.  Train smart by allowing your body time to adapt to these new stresses. Recover as you go and avoid an extended time off due to injury.

If you would like to learn more, contact Jessie Aufderheide, Certified Personal Trainer, or check out her website.

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