What is it?
A hamstring injury is a strain or tear in the muscles at the back of your thigh. These muscles run from your sit bone to the top of your lower leg. You usually feel the injury at the back of your thigh or in your buttock.
The injury often happens in one moment: you sprint off, turn suddenly or kick a ball hard. You feel pain straight away and sometimes get a bruise. In football it is one of the most common injuries.
Pain at your sit bone that came on slowly and lasts for months is a different complaint. It often involves the tendon, which needs a different approach.
Common causes
- Sprinting off or accelerating hard
- Sudden turns or changes of direction
- Kicking a ball hard
- A previous hamstring injury, especially a recent one
- A previous calf or ACL injury
- Older age
How we diagnose
We ask how the injury happened, where you feel the pain and which movements hurt. Your physiotherapist presses on the muscle, tests your strength and has you perform movements. An X-ray or ultrasound is usually not needed.
With VALD Force Decks and Force Frame we measure the strength of both legs. You can see how far your injured leg lags behind the other.
Treatment approach
In the first few days, rest eases the pain. After that you start moving again, because a muscle you do not use weakens fast. You begin by tensing the muscle without moving, then make the exercises heavier, bigger and faster step by step.
Your physiotherapist coaches you in our gym, from the first exercises to full sprints.
If you have had pain at your sit bone for months, it is often a tendon problem. For that, your physiotherapist may consider shockwave therapy alongside exercise therapy.
Expected recovery
Most people use their leg normally again within about 3 months. If the tendon has torn off completely, it takes longer.
You rebuild running and sprinting in stages. Once both legs score about the same on the strength tests, you decide together when to play matches again.
