Hi all, i pulled my hamstring, I've been told during a deep tissue massage, 5 weeks ago while doing park run & i can't believe how disappointed i am not to be able to get out to run; ill never complain that my kegs are tired again!!
Has anyone else had this & if so, how long was your recovery. I've tried to run a little but its too painful, i am.walking the 5k oarkrun but wondering if I'm overdoing it and need to rest more.i have brought a foam roller and resistance band to use, any advice greatly appreciated! 👍
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Nannyto2
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Your physio advice is the best. The only thing I will put into the mix is to help protect my recovering hamstrings I shortened my cadence when walking to protect them, but some of my issue was over striding when walking as it was putting pressure on them. Speedy recovery. Rfc x
Don’t run on it ! I have tendonitis (originally thought it was a pulled hamstring muscle but was worse. )I then ran on it twice ..& now been out for 10 weeks.
I am not saying you have tendonitis but just saying running too early will make it’s worse. See a physio. Foam roller good I am told ....also swim and ride a bike. I didn’t do anything so my fitness us dropped. Neither of these will hurt your hamstring I was advised.
See a physio for sure.
I feel your pain I really miss it! Get better soon.
I fear i also have tendonitis as the pain is now worse from trying to run and walk too far since the original injury. Do you ice or heat for leg? I'm on complete rest as even twisting my leg to get hurts 😪 think i may need to go back to beginning of c25k when i fit to get back into running but small price to pay
Sorry to hear this and delay. I did ice it for a week but am told now it’s only good to ice if as a pain helper not repairing. Winter - me too :(. After so many weeks I can’t even imagine running now. Go to a physio. I see one every 10 days. It’s improving I can now jog up stairs but once I sit the pain starts. Physio just started with 5 min on a treadmill. Going to start that today. It’s time......I feel your pain though (quite literally !) at first I worried about starting couch again now .....that’s my goal ! To start cough again and get off the injury bench.
Sorry to hear this Nannyto2 – such bad luck. I pulled a hamstring just after completing C25K a couple of years ago, very painful. My main piece of advice would be to rest it, and no running at all until the pain has subsided to nothing. If it is a pull, you risk damaging the muscles further, worsening the injury. I would use ice a few times a day, and not foam roll until the pain has lessened either. Sports massage can help with the healing of the muscles. I know it is not what you want to hear, but rest is the only way to get over a muscle pull. I even avoided long walks for a couple of weeks, to give myself the best chance to get over it quickly. One thing we learn the more we run is patience – patience to rest when injured (and I am not terribly good at this myself!) and the patience to build back up slowly again when we are recovered. It is all part of the running journey!
Take care, and I hope you heal quickly and well! Running will be there waiting for you. x
Thanks for the lovely encouraging post Safie-runs, i know you're right!
I've decided to completely rest my leg, i had been walking a 5k route I've run, shall just walk our two labradors and enjoy that until I'm completely pain free!
I see that we are a similar age! 😊 I came to realise a while back that is not how old we are, but how we age. some of which we have choices about and some of which we don't.
So on to my hamstring injury. Mine happened during early February, I had been running for nearly a year. I was just running along at an easy conversational pace. I always warm up, do my post run stretches, some pre-run too and strength exercises on non-running days. So I had no idea why it happened. It just went ping! I was over 4km from home. My husband was away at the time, really not sure how I managed to get home, but I did. Iced it and elevated. Spoke to a retired physio friend who told me that I needed to do both strength and stretch exercises. I assume that was after my hamstring had settled down a bit.
Any way I had two false starts re-starting my running. Just because I was totally pain free when doing normal tasks around the house clearly did not mean that I was ready for running. One of the times I re-tried it seemed even worse than when I first injured it.
The way I could tell that it was better was that If I bent down to go towards touching my toes, it felt the same as my non-injured leg. My successful re-start was 5 weeks after my first injury. I see from my notes that in fact, my hamstring was still not right as per the touching toes test, but I still ran, but gently and about 15 mins. I confess one of my failed re-starts was probably because I upped the distance and introduced hills far too soon. Silly me! I may have felt ready, but my leg wasn't. I would suggest when you do begin again you follow the 10% rule, building things up very, very slowly.
I did get back up to 10k, but really wasn't enjoying it as I had before and currently do just one interval run a week to keep my running ticking over while giving much more time to our garden.
Thanks for your great reply, our story sounds much the same apart from I've only started running this year. Completed c25k and did a couple of park runs; my hamstring injury happened at the second one at beginning of July. I've had a deep tissue massage, which was so painful but seemed to help initially but now i think i may have hamstring tendonitis as its so painful.to.sit down. Have scaled back my exercise, was walking park run route, to walking our dogs, ice, heat and rest.
I don't have any specific exercises but am stretching my leg. Any exercises you can recommend would be great. I have a sports massage next week.
An going back to the beg of c25k once my leg is fully healed, never thought I'd miss running so much.
Glad to hear your able to run again along with your gardening 😊
I am volunteering at park run but I only tail walk it once a month or longer. I have strength exercises but you have to stay off slow. I’ll look up the names for you later. Mine are causing my sciatica at the moment.
I can’t find the proper names but physio started me on only twice a week ...lying on my back legs on a big ball from back of knees and uplifting my hip up and down six times x 3.
Lying on my back legs out stretched then lift one leg up bent then at the knee straighten only as far as you can go and down like a synchro swinnner. X 10 Reps 3 times.
Seems minor but crucial only twice a week for a few weeks
Then that plus I now take a weight of something in both hand and stand tall holding ib front of my groin and lower to my floor and back - 3x8 reps.
I am still on pain 12 weeks on when I sit in car or desk ! But stopped being in pain anywhere else. It’s crucial you wait ....after 12 weeks he has said I can run 5 mins now. Not tried it yet ...nervous but if you have tendonitis ....it’s a long road like me ...key you DONT Run. I did ...and set me back again.
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