Hammie pull

Hey dude--

I had a pretty bad hamstring tear a couple of years ago. Got it doing yoga, actually.

If you are repeatedly tweaking the same injury, seems to me that you are not allowing yourself sufficient time to heal.

I know it sucks, but if you just lay off it for a couple of months, you might solve the problem.

In my case, I stopped surfing and all strenuous activity for 5 months. My sports med doctor said that it can take over a year for a hamstring tear to fully repair. It is also very common for re-injuries to occur and often times the re-injury is more severe than the initial injury. So even if you start to feel OK, it is best to really, really ease into any activity.

Besides just resting, here is what my physical therapy consisted of:

-Daily walks
-very light stretching (basically just bend at waist). stop immediately if you feel pain. best to do this after a walk when your muscles are warm
-once my mobility improved, touching toes for reps and standing on one leg for time
-once my strength improved, adding romanian deadlifts (light weight)

I actually felt twinges of pain from time to time up to 1.5 yrs after the injury. This is normal. Now it has been 2.5 years and there are no issues.

My deadlift strength is actually stronger than it was before the injury.

Hamstring is biggest muscle group in the body so you've got to take it really slow and expect that total recovery will be a long term process.