Tendonitis?

Injury Clinic
1

About two weeks ago my right hamstring cramped up during a flying 30. The next day when I tried to run it hurt pretty bad, so I slacked off a lot during practice. It hurts on what I think is a tendon on the lateral posterior side of my leg behind the knee. After that day I decided that I needed to rest. I quit running and lifting weights. I started icing it multiple times a day and stretching 3 times a day. I have been doing that up to now, and it hasn’t gotten any better. It may have even gotten worse. I feel like maybe the ice tightens it and makes it worse. I have lost a lot of conditioning from resting so long and I want to start working again so bad. It usually hurts if I try to go faster than a jog. This is causing me to be very distressed and frustrated. Do you think this is a tendon injury or tendonitis? Is it something that I can just “work out” as my coach says? What should I do?

2

I have the exact same thing only mine wasn’t acute it kind of slowly happened, more tendonitis I think. Heres what I do that gives me massive pain relief:

  1. Massage the calf below the tendon and the hamstring above the tendon. Tight muscles above and below the site can cause the tendon to be constantly stretched.

  2. Try rolling a tennis ball on the sole of your foot with fairly hard pressure for about 30-60 secs, this will loosen out the fascia running up the back of your leg and relax the tendons.

  3. Massage your piriformis with a tennis ball like this: lie down, cross legs, wedge ball between the ground and your glute of the bad leg and roll around on it. If your pain is sciatic nerve related then this will help you.

If I understand your injury correctly then this should help you out and speed up your recovery

3

By the way I would say forget the stretching for now, any stretching of the hamstring usually leaves my tendon painfull for days afterwards. Think massage and foam rolling instead of static stretching untill it starts to feel better.

4

can i stretch other muscles like my hips, quads, and calves

5

ya, go ahead and stretch your hip flexors in particular.