Hamstrings, the tighter the better right!? I wish. I've been dealing with a hamstring injury all year. Which is why I spent so much time on the yoga mat at home. I've had a hard time explaining exactly where this problem is located. I knew that when I ran, when I'd extend my leg to the front it was pulling at something at the very top of the hamstring and it felt like it was buried deep in the middle of everything connected up near all those attachment points.
No matter how much I stretched, it never got any better. Then with my ramp up to the marathon, I really got focused on my stretching. It was my attempt to try and not repeat my ankle injury from last year, which was the result of being too tight. Well all that extra stretching was just making it worse, or was it the extra running? All I knew was when I would run, I felt like I was compensating how my foot would strike in an attempt to protect that hamstring attachment from the impacts.
Once I threw in the towel on the marathon, I then had time to consider going back to my yoga classes. Only I was concerned about injuring myself at yoga. Seriously. When you are as tight as I am, good form for many of the poses is nearly impossible.
As I had mentioned before, my first problem was trying to describe the injury well enough to be able to enter something into the search engine. I was verbalizing this effort explaining it to Genine as she was getting ready to go to yoga. She left, I went to Google and started to read. By the time she got back from class, I had discovered that my first step towards recovering was to STOP STRETCHING. Not surprisingly, Genine had explained to Tiffany at yoga what I had said to her, so when she got home she had offered me the exact same advice. She also was in agreement with the 2nd part of what I had read. That the healing could possibly be helped by ART or Graston technique. This is where they rub the tendons to break up the adhesions and promote blood flow to the injured area. (tendons unlike muscles don't get very much blood flow).
So I've not stretched for two weeks and I think I'm feeling improvement. I think I was aware of the hamstring anytime I was walking two weeks ago. Now I'm only noticing it when I run and it's much less of an issue
I'm very hopeful that over the next 3 or 4 months that this will become a non-issue. I completely skipped the majority of my speed workouts last year because I was concerned about making that injury worse. It would be nice if I were healed up in time for my speed workouts in the spring.
Here are some of the links I found regarding my issue.
Hamstring Attachment PDF
Hamstring Tightness PDF
Hamstring Advice Stretching
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