Hamstring pain has often been described as the ‘pain in the bum’. People often describe pain right on their sitting bone and can feel it when sitting on hard surfaces, bending, walking and taking their shoes off.
It is often mistaken for sciatic pain or even the elusive ‘Piriformis Syndrome’ as it can travel down the leg slightly. The hamstring tendon attaches to your sit bone, which is at the bottom of your pelvis. The hamstring acts to bend the knee behind you as well as extend the hip back.
The hamstring can often become problematic if you are a runner and have had a previous hamstring strain or tear in the belly, and not fully strengthened up after. Or perhaps as you have increased your pace or intensity or volume of running or sport.
If you experience any numbness and pins and needles or associated back pain then there may be a problem with your back.
To test your hamstring, you can isolate it with the stretch below
If you feel pain with this stretch and/or when you resist the movement it is likely you have a hamstring tendinopathy.
TREATMENT OF HAMSTRING TENDINOPATHY
At JYphysiotherapy we are experts at diagnosing hamstring tendon problems as they are often missed or treated as back or sciatic problems. The two main aspects to manage hamstring tendons are reducing the COMPRESSION of the tendon, as well as building up the hamstring strength both for the muscle and tendon.
What is compression of a tendon?
A tendon can be visualised like an elastic tube when it is stretched it can squash down and if you were to sit on it or physically squash it, that would also make it squashed.
The same process seems to be problematic for tendons. So, if you imagine a hamstring tendon being stretched when you bend forwards or as in the above picture, this make be keeping the tendon in a painful state. So, the first few weeks you will try and avoid too many activities that cause compression. See below for some ideas.
Initially when you feel the pain you need to settle it down by avoiding the above positions.
You can also ice the hamstring and reduce how much sitting you are doing. Avoid hard chairs.
while you are settling it down you can start gentle loading of the tendon. Depending on how sore your hamstring is will depend how how quickly you progress. The main principle is that you do not make the pain worse during/ after or the next morning,
You can start with the following exercises and use a resistance band to make the exercise harder.
Other exercises include:
Working out how and when to progress is not easy, if you need help at any stage, get in touch.
JY physiotherapy offers excellence as standard, with a holistic approach to your physical wellbeing.