Ok I have a soccer athlete, who has just expereinced the oddest injury. She injured her knee (meniscus) playing soccer, the knee is not the problem as it is healing well. But the other issue is the hamstring.
When she goes to lift her leg to her bum, the hamstring does not contract and in turn the leg does not go past 90 degrees. The hamstring it self is soft and plyable, like it is not even contracting. There is no pain in the hamstring, or the glute there are also no signs of any massive tears ie: large ball of tissue.
I am at a loss here:
-What is this injury? No chiro, physio or doctor has been able to assess this injury and clearly define it.
-What course of treatment would one take for this?
The only thing I could think of would be EMS, for muscle re-education, but this is leary since the couse of the injury is yet unknown.
Thoughts?
Obviously this is completely impossible to do over the internet but some ideas…
What is the end feel of the tissue when you passively flex the knee? If it is a bone on bone then you could have a bone spur somewhere.
Using manual muscle testing… does the hamstring test strong in any ranges of motion? Does the gastroc test strong? How about the popliteus?
Is there a nerve entrapment somewhere down the length of the leg? Remember what crosses the knee joint. There could be an entrapment on the Sciatic or Tibial nerve. Apart from the obvious hamstring muscle groups you have the sartorius, gracilis, popliteus, plantaris, and gastrocnemius. Note how most of these are across the back of the knee and could be damaged somewhere close to that point if there was acute trauma.
Alternatively there could be a problem further up the body at L4, L5, S1, S2, S3.
One simple thing to do is get the glutes loosened and see if it improves the situation. I’ve seen entrapments from spasm of most/all of the hip rotators. For example, complete loss of abduction which is instantly fixed by 1min of percussive therapy on the glutes!
All this is pretty standard though so surely a good chiro would be able to identify the problem.