I ve strained my hamstring and my physio told me to abstain from any lower related activities for 2 weeks at least … so no squats or deads and obviously no speed work! How can i maintain strength?
The only thing i can do is bench press and weighted chins… is this sufficient? any ideas?
I ll probabaly lose muscle mass from lower body…
Whatever you can do for lower body without contracting the very strained muscle fibers will work for you.
I am having great workouts while waiting for a little adductor tear to heal.
Surround the dragon.
I was thinking about the whole general organism strength concept, Charlie was talking about … and thought that even if i lose muscle mass and strength from the lower body( which i probably will) but keep hammering upper body hard (and maybe more frequently due to freed up cns resources) i will not ACTUALLY lose true organism strength. There will be a reallocation of the cns resources or “training load” or whatever we call that :P, towards upper body, and when lower body training is resumed i may notice a temporary drop off, but will soon regain all that strength, and maybe even surpass my squat pb, because of the concetrated upper body work (which contributed to the organism strength) during that downtime…
i know my english sucks:D
you will come back to full lower body strength rapidly if you keep the upper work going- or advance it slightly- during this period. don’t get too worried.
THANK YOU CHARLIE!!
very encouraging…
and btw, i made a bench press pb and AND a weighted chin up PB today, (weird) probably because i ve dropped all the intensive lower body squats , and sprints for 5 days already.
You had also talked about this “common scenario” previously, which i did found very interesting too!
Of course. The competition for your CNS resources is reduced and concentrated in the upper body. Unfortunately, once you get back in full action, some of that quick gain may be hard to hold on to. However, in the long run, it’s always easier to return to that high upper body strength level than it is to reach it the first time under normal corcumstances. Keep at it!
How did you hurt your hamstring? Didn’t you just “fix” yourself with some new pilates back exercises?
yeap! Exactly what i had been thinking . Yes, when i recover and resume my usual training, and the CNS resources spread out more, that sort of quick gain will be hard to hold on to… thats expected !
And yes you are absolutely correct that once a performance PB has set in, its like a blueprint is made in the brain and is somewhat easier to repeat it again and again in the future
I ll keep at it!
haha yes! I just fixed the lower back pain for good , and now i tear my right hamstring in a 60m ! And its not the first time either! I had strained it more mildly twice in the past, but this third one, oh boy, that was good:D
My physio told me about a trigger point that has formed and i would keep tearing it if i received no therapy! Is a trigger point basically an adhesion around the scar tissue?
As far as I know, a trigger point is just an abnormal area of the muscle that is painful itself or causes radiating pain to other areas if compressed. So yes I believe it could be an adhesion in a scarred area. Trigger points can have a myriad of other causes too.
I had a grade 1, didn’t know what I was doing so I came back in 3 days with no real attempt at making it better
that led to a grade 2, I guess. Took 11 days off but that wasn’t nearly enough, judging by the extreme tightness of the hammy.
So I’ve taken a full month off now. Getting massage twice a week. Heating and stretching a little bit every day. Still tight with a tinge of pain every once in a while.
Should I try to build up strength after a hamstring strain before hitting the track again…
ie, through hypers, curls, light squats?
I’m obviously going to be a lot weaker after so much time off. Will going straight back into hard running after no running increase my risk for another one?
I plan on starting a 10-11 week GPP when I get healthy after being away from full-time sprinting for some years…so I want to get it right.
are u supposed to apply heat or cold to a strain??