So imagine you just played a pick-up game of soccer for an hour. You go for that final break-away and 💥BAM💥 it feels like you’ve been hit in the leg with a hammer.
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This has happened to a lot of us, likely you’ve experienced a hamstring strain. An injury to one of the 🔙thigh muscles, and one of the most common strains in the body.
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How does this happen? When you’re running 🏃🏼⚡️ at high speeds there’s a lot more demand to the muscles of the hip (compared to jogging it’s more the knees).
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The hamstrings run from the back of your pelvis to below your knees. So when your hip is driving your leg forward ⏩, the hamstrings act as the breaks ⛔️to slow down the leg in the last part of ‘swing phase’. This breaking action is called ‘eccentric contraction’ of the muscle.
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The most force ⚡️goes through a muscle with this eccentric load. It’s why you see these injuries happen on TV 📺 with no contact to an athlete. Examples:
🏃🏼Sprinters at the end of a race
⚾️Baseball players reaching for 1st base
⚽️️Soccer players following through on kicks
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These injuries are commonly mismanaged 🙅and a lot of times rest doesn’t help the muscle. In fact 1/3 of these injuries reoccur 💢within 2️⃣ weeks of return to sport (Heider 2010)
