Drivephase1015 Training Journal

I had my Dr. appointment to get a referral to pt. He diagnosed it as a partial tear. Not very specific, but he was more concerned about the tendons and what not. I have a PT appt tomorrow at 1:45 so hopefully it’s turns out to just a be strain and not a pull. I’ve never had hamstring trouble so I don’t know what one would feel like or if it were serious at the time it happened. I was given two perscriptions. One muscle relaxer and naproxen. I have been icing so right now I’m just going to take a day or two off. I’ll have more news tomorrow. I’m just hoping the PT says it’s minor etc.

It’s all the same stuff. It doesn’t sound too bad, but you shouldn’t keep trying to run or lift on it the next few days. Definitely no stretching in the immediate future (will likely cause more damage in the first 1-3 days or so depending on severity).

Yeah, I just meant that I’m hoping it’s such a low grade one that they laugh at me. I haven’t been stretching and I’ve been icing like crazy today. That’s about all I can do right now until pt tomorrow. The bad thing is that I ran pretty well. 6.45 in the prelims (got a way with a false start in the finals and evened it up with having to hope across the finish line (last 10-15m or so). I still ran 6.35.

Talk about Karma haha.

This morning when I woke it was very weird. I don’t feel any pain at all, even when I touch it. Is this normal? What have your experiences with this been like? Is this normal? I have no idea what to expect so if I don’t feel pain it makes me think that I can run and it’s done, but that can’t be right.

I had my eval. with a physical therapist today. He came to the conclusion that I didn’t tear it, but had a mild strain. He recommended that I do light pain free stretching, running and machine lifting. All below pain level. He also recommended that I do not push the running for 1 month and certainly no sprinting for 2 months. He then told me that I can manage this all from home and don’t need to come in for therapy.

Thoughts, opinions? If it is just mild, why 2 months before sprinting? I’m very, very, very stubborn and don’t know if I can wait that long. Let alone more than 2 weeks.

Get a new therapist. IN a few days get some massage. You could also get some ultra sound. There is now reason to kill a season for a mild strain. You need aggressive therapy, not stay home and do nothing therapy. I have a guy that does stretches. I Tore my quad and I mean ripped it up and he got me back in about a month. Had a strained hammy he got me back in 2 weeks.

Yeah, I’m exploring other options, I was pretty pissed off when I left today. When he told me how long I should stay away from intense workouts I was thinking (yeah, that’s gonna work). It was really just a waste of time.

The mild strain I got last year took me 2 weeks to recover from and one more week to be racing again. It was right at the beginning of my comp season.

The one I had sounds more severe then the one you have, so I dont see why 2 months would be needed. The one thing that helped was that I allowed it to heal while doing some sport specific activities. So as soon as I could jog I did, as soon as I could do some drills I did, as soon as I could do some light strides I did ect…

One thing leads to another and bam you’re back at it while of course being cautious.

And a good chiro/massage therapist will do wonders. I had some ART and massage to help the recovery process and break up the scar tissue.

I just can’t see why it would be as long. Sure it’s sore when I do things with it. I know I can’t sprint with pain, but I believe I can run at 75% or a hair faster. I know anything that involves a sprint will not be comfortable, but 2 months. Quite a joke. I’ll probably take one more day away and then try to do a workout at tempo or ext. tempo pace on Thursday.

I’m just not sure how to attack the lifting. i want to squat and do cleans.

I’d probably start with a long warm-up before doing a full ext. tempo workout. I’d also be really careful about coming back so quickly if you don’t have therapy (massage/ART/etc.) to assist you. It is a lot easier to come back when you’re getting some sort of manual therapy–if you don’t, you could very well re-injure the area (extremely common).

Check out this thread:

http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?t=1015&highlight=hamstring+recovery

I’ve recovered fully from more severe strains in 2-3 weeks without even using any therapist.

What are your thoughts on this? The relation of hamstring injuries with sprints and RDLs? I had a coach tell last year that he had read an article talking RDLs causing hamstring injuries? I don’t agree with it, but I had been doing them 1x per week. I’m just curious if any of you had heard that.

My gf just had a strain in her hamstring and she blamed stiff legged deadlifts. Not sure if I believe that though.

Go nuts on the upper in the mean time. Hit the CNS so that you can maintain those qualities.

I think it would depend on when in relation to your sprint training the RDLs are being done. If you do heavy RDLs and then do sprints on sore/tight hammies on the same or the next day that would probably predispose to injuries. I would personally try to do those lifts that target the hamstrings as long before the next maxV session as possible.

What exactly can I do to hit the CNS now?

I did my RDLs on Monday’s workout, not having max v till Thursday and racing on Sunday. I am going to try to do a warm up today and a med ball circuit and see how I feel. It feels okay now so I’m interested to see how it will feel tonight during the warm up. I am also going to start using a foam rollers for some manual therapy since I can’t afford massages, etc right now. Well, I can, I just don’t want to anger my wife.

I’ve read that Ben hit the upper body hard in order to help maintain some CNS qualities while injured. Max strength and power for upper body could be useful.

So obviously bench press, jerks, push press, etc. How about cleans, snatch, variations as well?

If you can do the cleans and snatch without your hamstring hurting that could be a good addition. But I would be very careful with those.

Explosive bench is good too. 10 sets of 2 reps at 40-50% max for speed and 1 minute breaks.

I was able to get a warm up in today. I did a tempo warm up with some jogging, skips, lunges. I also did some static and dynamic exercises and two accels. They were light and i felt very little pain. I was honestly thinking of doing a workout tomorrow and seeing how it feels. Thoughts? Stupid?