On monday while doing my 30’s out of blocks when i was accelerating my left medial lateral hamstring felt like there was alot of presure being put on it. I had never felt this before so i slowed it down a little bit and it still felt tight like when i push i felt pressure on it. So i did 1 more and it started to hurt a slight bit so i called it a day. I went into the ice bath for 15 minutes after.
Yesterday i got a massage from my coach and did 2500 meters of tempo and EMS at night. Today i got another massage form the coach and 4 hours later I warmed up for my special endurance workout 350/300 and still felt a some localized tightness. I ran my first 350 in 37 for the 300 and 44 for the 350 then came back 15 minutes later and ran 36.8 for the 300. The times were good considering i did have little bit of dull tighness pain in my hamstring. I then iced for 15 mins. and will do EMS tonite.
My question now is with less than 3 weeks left until the first meet what should i do? I was planning on going in the pool toamorrow and friday and resting on saturday and sunday so hopefully my hamstring will be back to normal next week. What do you guys think? Am i doing the right thing?
sounds about right.i had the same thing happen to me two years ago,and i went though about the same type of treatment and i had no problems with my hamstrings for the rest of the year.
I would try to postpone all high intensity sessions for a few days or a week until the hamstring feels fully normal again. In the meantime you can do training sessions that don’t aggrevate it as well as the kind of treatments you’ve already been employing. A week of reduced training won’t ruin your seasion but a hamstring tear most probably would.
Thanks.im planning on going in the pool for the next few days and continuing my massage and EMS. When should i do light exersies such as leg curls to strengthen it or should i not?
At this stage relaxation of the hamstring should be your primary objective, as you don’t want the tightness you feel at the moment to cause a tear. Strengthening will be of prophylactic value to prevent future problems but I wouldn’t commence it before the hamstring feels normal again. You can, however, do very light excercises such as cycling to increase blood supply to the muscle which will help with the healing process. EMS will also help with that but make sure you only use a very weak current so you don’t get strong contractions.
robin,
thanks again for your response. i know my hamstring is not injured its just slightly irritated. Today after my massage and pool workout my coach put me on this seated hamstriong machine we got in my gym and had me do sets of ham curls (2 sets dorsiflexed and 2 plantar flexed)very light for 10 reps.
With the EMS would it help to jack it up a bit and have the contration following the pattern of a slow heartbeat or faster like a heartbeat of 200 bets per minute?
Some EMS machines have a massage mode. If the one you’re using doesn’t use a high frequency with a low current, as this will maximise blood supply to the muscle without aggravating it.