Hamstring Strain Injury Physiotherapy

The hamstring group is made up of three muscles, the semimebranosus, semitendinosus and biceps femoris. Their main function is to bend your knee and extend your hip; it also helps with the position of your pelvis.

When you over exert your self during a running sport, a hamstring strain commonly feels like a ”pulling” feeling on the back part of your thigh, sometimes it can occur behind your knee your near you buttock.

Advice from our Sydney Physiotherapists is to:

• Stop the activity and apply ice for 20min intervals for the first couple hours,
• use a compression bandage to help control swelling should this occur
• cease all activity for 24hrs and see a physiotherapist if pain or significantly decreased movement occurs.

During this phase, do not run or exercise, do not stretch the injured area, do not consume alcohol, do not apply heat and do not massage the area.

Hamstring injuries will be graded by your physio from grades 1-3 depending on the severity of the injury. The recovery time also depends on the degree of the tear.

Causes are usually a decreased range (flexibility) of the hamstring group but also increased ranges (hypermobility) are also at risk of sustaining strains. Altered position of your pelvis and tight balancing structures such as your quadriceps can affect your hamstrings and how they work. Your physiotherapist will be able to assess these for you.

It is advised by your physio that you seek treatment for this injury, because if scar tissue forms then this will form a point of weakness in the muscle and this be a recurring hamstring injury, which will then be chronic.

Sports where hamstring injuries are common, are accelerating and decelerating sports such as sprinting in soccer, AFL, tennis and also many of the kicking sports.

If you feel any of the above symptoms, please seek some physio treatment for this hamstring pain.