♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Well hi there folks, I'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck physical therapy.
- We are the most famous physical therapist on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today we're going to talk about
hamstring strain slash pain,
will never go away unless you do this.
Now we are warning you, to listen to us once.
- Well, exactly Bob, this is one of those things
that little pearl that we can help you big time.
If you have that continuous hamstring issues.
- Sure.
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This is a big problem for a lot of people,
hamstring problems.
- Well hamstrings, as far as people that are active
is a very commonly injured muscle.
I pulled my hamstring, it cramps up a lot.
You know from, and it's one way or another,
it's painful and it's one of these things that,
how do you deal with it, if--
- You've got it, my wife's got it.
She's, it's an ongoing issue with her.
- Right.
- We have to and we'll talk about something she's done to.
- Sure, okay.
So what's the issue?
You know, you think well if you injure your hamstrings,
you got to stretch it.
Well, I'm telling you,
stretching may be a good thing to do to it,
but it's not gonna fix the problem.
- Right.
- As a matter of fact, if you strain your hamstring
and you start stretching it, right after you're straining,
you can actually make it worse.
So there's a time for stretching
and a time not for stretching.
- Is yours a high hamstring Brad?
Up up near the buttock - No.
- Or it's more in the middle?
- Mid, mid, I've got. - Okay.
- Is easier to treat generally.
- Sure.
I've had the higher one, right up at the--
- Sure.
- We would have.
- Keep going.
- Yeah, keep on track here, Bob.
We'll get off on a tangent.
So one thing if you are having hams--
Now if you have a tear in your hamstring.
- Right.
- Which is very serious.
Let's say we're not talking about that.
We're talking about the nagging hamstring.
What makes you a limp, but you're still functional.
But you know you're not gonna sprint.
- Right.
- You know, you're not gonna be hiking up and down.
You know, rough terrain, that kind of thing.
- It'll all fire up on you.
- Exactly.
- So what do you do if you don't stretch it?
What we need to do is actually strengthen.
- The glutes. - The glutes.
- Yeah.
- The reason the hamstrings are becoming injured,
chronically all the time is because these muscles
are not doing their job forcing the hamstring
to overwork--
- Is becoming the dominating muscle.
- Right.
- The hamstring, and it's working too hard.
- Right.
- And so you gotta get those glutes in here to help.
- Right.
- The glutes come on in.
- So we need to strengthen the glutes
and there's good exercises to strengthen the glutes.
But it even gets a little more complicated.
- Yes it does.
- The glutes may now, may never strengthen,
if you have tight hip flexors, the opposite muscle group,
which a lot of people if you spend a lot of time sitting
at your job, in your car, those hip flexors,
can get tight and when they get tight.
There's something called reciprocal inhibition,
or what's the other term?
- Crossed, Lower Crossed Syndrome.
- Right.
Well, if you're a therapist or you're--
- You're really heavy into athletics,
you may not understand some of this stuff but--
- Right, it's a neurological thing that,
if the hip flexors are tight,
neurologically, they will not allow the glute muscles--
- To work to their full maximum.
- Exactly.
- They're just not, not firing like they should.
- It's rather interesting Bob--
- It is interesting.
- We've got hamstring problems, tie in to the hip,
the hip flexors. - Right.
And the same, you have some upper body situations too,
but we won't go into those.
- Right.
So we first need to adjust your hip flexors.
Should we show the one-- - Sure
- Feel their tight--
- So we need to stretch those tight hip flexors.
- Right.
- Very important.
This is the one I do every morning.
I just put down,
I would see which knee do you want me one forward Brad,
like this?
- Yeah, yeah, we're gonna. - All right.
So I'm stretching this hip flexor.
And what I do, is I lean forward here
and I keep good posture.
And I actually take my hand
and I push it on my pelvis a little bit Brad.
- Right here, that muscle in that front pocket area.
That hip flexor is really getting a nice stretch there.
Notice is a nice upward posture.
- Now if you want to stretch it a little bit more even
you turn your foot out that way.
- Yep.
- And I lean forward and puts just a little more stress
on that hip flexor muscles.
If your doing this one, you would turn it out that way.
- Right.
- And lean forward like that so.
- Sure.
- That's just a simple way to do it.
You want me to show one on the mat too Brad?
- Sure.
- So on the mat if you have--
- You could do this on your bed if you got a affirm bed.
- First off, don't fall off the bed.
- Right.
- You're gonna bring your legs over to the edge like this.
And I'm gonna stretch this one,
so this one goes down to the floor.
This is the problem like if you tall like me
and the mattress is kind of low to the ground.
- Yeah.
- I'll be hitting the ground and it'll be a problem.
- Yeah.
- But you lock the pelvis this way.
- Yep.
- And then you let this,
you can actually bend the knee a little bit
and it'll stretch it a little bit into the quadricep too.
- Right get that quadriceps femoris.
- This is just a passive way to stretch that muscle.
- Bob it's driving me nuts,
relax a little bit there. - There we go.
And it's a comfortable way to do it.
When you wake up in the morning,
to give a little bit of stretch of the hip flexor there
before you even get out of bed.
- And make sure you do both legs,
so you kind of have to use the other side of the bed.
Stay on there once Bob.
We also now just started the positional release.
Which is actually really nice on the bed.
So, wanna put your leg back on there?
- Yep.
- Bob was just experienced this last week
for the first time.
- So you bring your hip up, right?
So we're relaxing and releasing the hip flexor.
- On the right leg.
- So I bring it up.
- His other leg is gonna be in a hook line position.
So he's got his knee up.
- Yeah, now I feel pain right there, Brad.
- Mm hmm.
- So then you had me bringing out a little bit right or in?
- Yep.
So you move the knee or the foot.
You can think about bringing the foot in.
- Put in this way.
So once I've been in this position for 90 seconds, Brad,
so I found the spot that works.
- The position of the most comfort,
depending on where you put your knee
and maybe a little rotation.
It feels good.
It's relax.
90 seconds, look at a clock, timer, whatever you have,
then you can slowly relax and put it down.
There you go, and you can--
- You can even do a little bit of motion back and forth.
- Yeah a little range of motion, you know, slowly,
just making it, you know, feel good and relaxed,
allowing that circulation to continue
to let that muscle relax.
- And slowly bring it down.
- There you go.
- So the muscle state is calmed down and stays calm down.
- With, through the transition, get up,
walk around a little bit.
- So now we've taken care of the hip flexor.
We've stretched it, we've calmed it down.
Now we need to start strengthening the glutes.
- Right.
- So they can kick in and do their job.
- Just to review, you can either stretch it if that works.
You don't have to do the positional release.
If the release works better, you don't have to stretch,
do what makes it feel the best.
- Or do both.
- Or both exactly.
Now, the strengthening is probably a little more simple.
I'm gonna take the pillow out for strengthening,
I don't like it for this.
Glutes, we're gonna do a bridge so,
I'm in the hook line position.
Exactly how I am now, not on a bed,
much better on a firm carpeted floor,
and I'm gonna go up
and think about squeezing those butt cheeks together,
up and squeeze and relax.
And we're gonna do 10 to 15 of these.
Now if this is too easy and you want more effort,
you can take some weight.
You know, if you wanna have a dumbbell up here,
put it on your waist right here.
I don't have one at handy.
But the other option you can do if you don't have one
is simply go to the one legged.
The only thing that you do have to be careful about
some people will get a hamstring cramp for doing this.
If you feel the hamstring cramp, stretch it out,
straighten those legs out and sit up.
- You might vary where you put your foot too,
cause sometimes like my hamstrings tend to cram more here.
than they do here.
- Right. - That's all.
- Actually, what I like to do better and this is,
and this is the way I do them.
You wanna grab the black stool Bob?
- Yep.
- I actually use my physio ball or the exercise ball
and I put it under my feet,
but you can use a stool, works just as fine.
And now I'm gonna have,
I don't do it on a table like this.
- Right (laughs).
- I do it straight.
Can you go that way a little bit, Bob?
- Yep.
- There you go.
With your legs straight,
you won't have the hamstring cramp issue
and you get a better squeeze on your butt too.
- Wow that's a good idea Brad.
- I think this is better and then I've palpate
my abdominal muscles and I tighten them up.
So I'm getting core and glutes and so double win situation.
And I'll do 10 to 15 of these
in coordination with some of my other exercises.
- Oh, it's a good idea Brad.
- Yeah.
- I just learned something new today.
- Yeah, it's fun.
- It's always a great day Brad.
So you were, we're gonna mention another option,
I was gonna show you this one where you can actually,
get in the quadruped position.
- Oh yeah the quadruped.
- And you're gonna bring your leg up like this into a 90,
which puts the hamstring up more on slack.
- Right.
- And now I can just raise the heel toward the sky.
- And that's versus if you put your legs straight.
It works your butt, but your hamstrings aren't involved,
- So if you keep-- - Kicking in right.
- Yep, if you keep the knee bent
it isolates the glutes better
- And again, squeeze that buttock.
- Yeah.
- You know, I could actually did,
this does start to burn Brad.
You could do this with a band right too,
around your, the legs.
- Yep around the knees if you have a loop band
you could put it just above the knees or below,
whatever works better to give you some more resistance,
and that'll work the abductor a little bit too,
10 to 15 reps, two or three sets
depending how ambitious you wanna be.
- One thing that helped my wife too with her running
is we did have her start working on more of a,
not as long a stride.
- Sure.
- You start, shorter strides,
more you know turnover quickly.
- Is she a forefoot runner?
- Yes she became a forefoot runner.
- Sure.
- Which helped too.
- Yeah.
- You know, she, she took shorter strides so it's not,
she wasn't doing that where she was hitting the heel
and had a really lengthened stride
which really put a lot of stress on the hamstring so.
Even with walking, if you're a walker
and you're getting hamstring pain,
try taking a little bit shorter strides.
- Yeah.
- And see if that helps calm those hamstrings down.
- Sure.
- So, it's sometimes that repetitive nature
of just, you know,
with like walking or running fires those hamstrings up.
- It's kind of a bad situation,
- It's a mystery, isn't it a little bit--
- It never happen to me till I got in my 50s,
I could do anything I wanted before.
- I didn't know so cause it is on your left side right now,
you said? - Yeah.
- You've had it on your right side.
I thought your hip flexor was tighter on your left side so.
- Yeah, yeah, I think you're, I think you're right there.
- You gotta listen to your own medicine here.
- I know Bob.
- Take your own medicine.
- Yeah, I know I'm a little stubborn.
You know, I'm a little German (laughs).
- All right, thanks for watching.