hamstring pain

I have a guy who has proximal hamstring pain on his biceps femoris. He also has severely inhibited glute firing on that site if I test him with a prone hip extension (push heel toward ceiling). He cannot resist more than about 25lb of pressure that test due to pain in said hamstring area. The pain only occurs in certain situations. He says it feels like a slight tug during sprinting and pressure to the area causes pain as well as certain exercises like split squats. He has not had any real injury or strain incidents in a while (months+). Any comments?

I am disappointed that this is still an issue so long after the fact. I didn’t fully address it earlier as he rarely showed up for practices but in the past few weeks his attendance has been is excellent.

Background: he had some moderate hamstring problems last year (grade 1 strains). He got some questionable treatment from out trainers (pnf 2 days post injury) and I was forced to run him again too early and another strain occurred (this was at the end of our season).

He was still having some issues (pain/inhibition) in that area in the fall when I saw him so I took him to an ART guy in November 07 with limited results.

Should I send him back to our trainers for the traditional aggressive stretching and deep ice cup massage? I taught him some tennis ball self-release for the problem areas and told him to add some of that on his own time. good idea/bad idea? I am unsure if it’s a neural or muscular issue as I don’t feel much difference in the tissue on palpation (good leg vs bad leg).

A wrench thrown into the mess is that he is also quite sore in general from his newfound dedication after 4 weeks of inactivity.

Trainer says he’s fine… awesome!(sarcasm)

There are much problems in this kind of injury, check quad, adductor,tfl, calf and low back too.
Glutes can have a role in ham neural imbalance.
When you have a problem that doesn’t heal, try to see other thing.
ART is a good treatment, but the most important point is how peoples use this technique.

Thanks for the comment jamirok. I will take your advice and also seek better professional treatment for him.

i agree with jamirok, a bigger picture seems to be at play. Perhaps for starters, a full posture assessment of the guy? Sounds like something somewhere is OUT and needs re-allignment - and then exercises done to strenghten those areas affected - or massage, actup., Art etc to loosen Spasamed muscles.
Mind you, if something has been spasamed for some time, some for of muscle wasting has bound to occur, and exercises of some kind in that area would surely be needed? Perhaps it was a weak muscles in the 1st place that caused the spasm, that lead to the allignment etc etc??