Hi Thornhill…this may change your thinking, it’s out of Australia where they are kind of smart and try stuff and don’t tend to stick to old school thinking…
Hamstring Rehabilitation Program
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You must do exactly as this program suggests otherwise you will run the risk of re-injury and that could set you back 2-3 months.
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We are going to do reps over 100m, starting at quite a slow pace, and gradually increasing the pace day by day.
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You will need to do 16-24 reps over 100m, timing the middle 40m. This is so that you can tell how fast you are running day by day, and not going by how fast it feels.
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Each day you are allowed to run 16-24 x 100m and you are allowed to increase the pace day by day but only to the point where you feel you are not “forcing it”. If you can feel pain in the leg then it means that you are probably forcing it, and trying to go too fast.
So for example, on the 1st day you may be able to run the middle 40m in 10s, then on the next day you may be able to run it in 9s then on the next day you may be able to run it in 8s etc. -
After a few days of running reps you may not need to run 24 x 100m. So you may 24 for 3-4 days then decrease this to 20 or 18 or 16. You are just looking for the point where the hamstring “lets go”. This is where from one rep to the next you will all of a sudden notice it feeling a lot “free-er” and easier.
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The recovery between each 100m rep is just a slow walk back. Nothing shorter than this as we don’t want you running in a fatigued state.
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Once you can run the middle 40m at 100% then make the acceleration phase shorter (e.g 20m) and then middle 40m piece longer (e.g 50m). You can keep decreasing the acceleration phase until then you can accelerate at 100%.
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Once you can run the middle 40m section at 100% then you should be able to race 3 days after this.
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It is far better to run too slow than too fast. The idea is to finish all reps and for the hammy to feel better and looser, not tighter and more sore!
Let me know what you think.