How do strengthing exercises help or aid in recoveryin a hamstring injury(tendinitis)???
Rest Ice compression and Elevation make up 80% of the recovery of soft tissue injury. The rest is basically strengthening exercises. It helps recover the injury and makes it strong enough to avoid injuring it again. But please don’t fall in the mistake of trying to come back too fast. You might reinjure your self and start the whole process again from scratch. And this time it takes more time. So its better to wait a little than overspeed your recovery.
What I picked up from the sports injuries texts a while ago was that the vast majority of research sports injuries concerns acute injuries. Chronic injuries have been researched less well (See Norris). R.I.C.E is the primary treatment for acute injuries, and is useless for some (most?) chronic injuries. I’m not having a go at you Fast you didn’t know this is a chronic one (james has a number of threads on his injury). James what physiotherapy have you tried or been told to do (and stuck to), and what has not worked in your opinion, since the injury settled into its present state?
While you are having problems with your leg are you exercising the rest of the body? I used weights on upper body and good leg only last year, and put muscle on my thighs and have no problems with strength imbalances now. I’ve found the same to apply for one good arm, after hurting one wrist put one hand out for 2 months recently.
I have just been icing it and light stretching. I did this for about a week and It felt great and i could also do some light jogging without it hurting. I got happy and i started jogging alot and it got a little sore. Instead of a sharp soreness it now feels more like a tender bruise feeling. i dont think jogging or exercises helped it at all. I think it is almost healed i just wanted to know how to speed it up and if i should do strenghening exercises.
I was doing some upperbody workouts but i got discouraged after my hamstring got sore again. Now i only do 40 pushups without stopping everyother night.
If you can get to a physiotherapist for the exercises. When was the last time there was any visible swelling? Can’t tell if it was the rest or ice that helped from what you have said.
Can’t you lift weights 4 uppper body? Stepups/single leg squats(partial)/single leg GHR for good leg?
James - I found using the gym bike on a low setting was a good way to exercise the ham without putting any pressure on it. I did this for the first 2 weeks after an initial 4 days of complete rest - now I’m at the drills / slow running / fast feet stage - hopefully moving up to 60m / 100m 65-75% tempo 2morrow.
I tried some dumbell squats to 40 kg the other day - these didn’t seem to cause any problems - but I don’t know enough to recomend them or not.
I think we’d both be interested to hear at what stage other members have implemented strength training into their rehab training for hamstrings, and what types of stuff is least risky most effective - ie ham raises / how many reps etc
Try and see this inforced lay of as a good chance to work on ur upper body, it keeps u motivated.
Good luck mate.
Thanx alot, I think i will just keep icing it and cycle. I will also start working out.