Just got back from the clinic. What I originally thought was a glute pull is actually an upper hamstring pull right at the attachment point.
Injury occurred back on July 15th. Good news is the therapy REALLY helped. I go back on Tuesday for PT and again the week after for more massage.
Hopefully it wont interfere with my training too much 
Cheers,
Chris
Good To Hear… Good Luck With Everything! Keep Us Posted.
Chris. I had the same injury in 2001. it on;y hurt when i lifted my leg high enough to run in that area. i could walk normal and everything.
all you need to do is get it rubbed and stretched out.
Thanks guys. It was murder at first sitting down but things are a lot better. I should have gotten him to work on both legs as I now have a tight right ham and a relaxed left one haha
Cheers,
Chris
ps- the therapist made the following comment (summarized)
I see ham pulls up at that area all the time. Something that works well for both rehab and maintainence is to perform several eccentric based exercises for that area. The pull happens when you are weak on the support phase on landing.
He recommended ham curls concentrating on the eccentric portion of the movement and rev leg press doing the same thing. (ie: 4-5 second negative, 1 second pause, 1 second positive)
He said to include just a couple of exercises using eccentric bias and not change the rest of my workouts. He said this should help a great deal.
What do you guys think?
Thanks,
Chris
Chris, how did u sustain the pull? Did you injure it running up a hill?
I aggravated it doing SLDL’s 2 days prior to a race. When I was running the race and transitioning from accel to top speed I must have overstrided and pulled it. I finished the race (dumb) and have had pain ever since. It is much better now though 2-3 weeks of therapy and I should be good to go.
I did a pretty heavy short accel/plyo/weight workout on saturday and didnt have any discomfort so things are progressing well.
Hey Chris, do you think you will ever be able to be as fast again over the 100m as you were in the mid 90s? If not, why not? Don’t say you’re too old dude, you’re only 30! You also appear to have a great program in place now and probably have a lot more knowledge about training than you did years ago.
Not to make excuses but I dont know if I’ll ever approach that speed again in the 100m.
It’s possible but I have a few extra challenges now compared to then.
Good things about my current training:
Much better program (Thanks to this site)
strength levels are similar and more consistent
Not overtraining like I was back then
My elastic strength is improving now. (Not to the level I was before but MUCH improved)
Less pressure. I am doing this for enjoyment and fitness now. Not to make Canada Games/CIAUs/provincial/varsity teams.
I think my 200 outdoor time should be pretty good this summer if all goes according to plan. I dont think I’ll run sub 22 FAT but hopefully a mid high 22 FAT will be possible. (I would actually be happy with a low-mid 23FAT at first
Cheers,
Chris
Dear Chris,
“I injured my left ham in late 97. It is pretty much recovered now (My new injury is in a different place) but I probably have a fear of popping it again.”
A muscular injury always heals with scaring so that you will have scar tissue in your muscle where the 97 injury occured. Scar tissue is stronger than muscle tissue and therefore subsequent pulls will mostly occur somewhere else in the same muscle, which is exactly what happened to you. Scar tissue, however, is not elastic so that your flexibility decreases with every time you injure your muscle, which then can set you up for further injuries. This is a bit of a vicious circle where an injury produces a scar, the scar causes reduced flexibility/increased tighness, the reduced flexibility/increased tighness causes another injury, etc. For this reason it is very important to work on good hamstring flexibility in order to prevent further tears.
As soon as your current hamstring injury is fully healed you can get your therapist to do some PNF hamstring stretches for example, which is a good technique to increase muscular flexibility.
You should also have some cross friction done on both your old and your new sites of hamstring injury to align the collagen fibres of the scar with the muscle fibres which will give the tissue increased strength and possibly a bit more flexibility.
In your training it is also very important that you don’t do anything that produces pain or tighness in your hamstring and resume certain exercises only once they don’t hurt you anymore. If in your sprint training for example you feel even slight pain or tighness in your hamstring you should better stop and do something else.
Regards,
Robin.
One other thing you should do is takes systemic enzymes to help dissolve any fibrous deposits in your muscles. The levels of enzymes begin to decline from the age of 27. Supplementing with an enzyme blend like Vitalzym will make your muscles feel young again. I’ve only been taking Vitalzym for 2 weeks and my muscles haven’t felt so loose since I was a teenager! You can find out about Vitalzym and the importance of systemic enzymes at http://www.drwong.info and http://www.totalityofbeing.com
Another super anti-fibrolytic enzyme is Nattokinase, which is available from the Allergy Research Group. I’ll be trialing this enzyme in a couple of weeks.
Thanks guys!!
I am getting therapy on my current injury site but I should get them to work on the old site as well.
Thanks for the info on the supplement as well. I’ll check into it.
Thanks for the tip regarding systemic enzymes. I’ve looked into it a bit and it sounds like something worth trying.
Regards,
Robin.