This is freakin’ ridiculous. No one should suffer through 5 weeks from a hamstring strain with no improvement. One of my favorite stories from Charlie is hearing how he was brought in by an NFL team to fix an athlete (very high profile receiver) who was suffering from a hamstring injury for almost a year. Charlie got in there and the receiver was good to go (i.e. playing and scoring touchdowns) after five days.
I wrote a few articles on a case study of the hamstring rehab process. One of my athletes, doing bobsleigh at the time, tore up his hammy pretty bad in pre-season testing. We had to get him back for the season which began four weeks later. This meant he had to be good to push at 100% on ice. There was no room for half-assed recovery. He had to be ready to push at 100% for numerous reps.
This particular progression took 3 weeks because we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss a step and he was absolutely ready to go once the season started. And we had four weeks - so why not take our time and make it For more minor strains, I’ve had great results (full recoveries) in 5-10 days. However, don’t artificially create a deadline. It may take as long as it needs to take.
The key point is that the muscle must be ready to do the work placed in front of the athlete. This means very progressive massage, a good understanding of running mechanics and good communication with the athlete on their status after each rep and set. You are not making them do something they are not ready to do. You are building on their successes and accumulating volume of work at a given intensity and distance.
If there is one thing you can learn from Charlie’s approach, it is you need to learn from what the athlete can has done in the previous rep/run and proceed from there. You constantly need to assess the status of the athlete from rep to rep. How did they look? Can they do more? Do not ask for more if they can’t maintain their technique. Do not change the intensity of the work too dramatically. If they look good running at 75% of top velocity, let them run a number of reps and sets at that velocity to accumulate competency at that velocity. Don’t get cute.
Needless to say, a whole book could be written on the subject of hamstring rehab. Hopefully these articles give a sense of progression and care.
When examining the video clips, notice the difference in foot placement and heel recovery as we progress through the rehab process (left side).
http://www.runningmechanics.com/hamstring-rehabilitation-and-running-mechanics-part-1/
http://www.runningmechanics.com/hamstring-rehabilitation-and-running-mechanics-part-2/
I will soon be posting some articles on managing muscle tone - which I believe is absolutely critical to the rehab process in all injuries.