Do you have a torn hamstring? Do you have a strain or a tear on the back of your leg? Maybe
you've tried some different treatments or healing exercises and it's just not working? Or maybe,
like me, you tried some stuff and it actually got worse? If so, this video is for you.
My name's Lucas, I'm a yoga teacher, a teacher trainer. I had a really bad hamstring injury
about 20 years ago. I did everything wrong and then eventually everything right along the way
and I've since been able to help hundreds of students, so hopefully I can help you too. In
this video we'll chat about the anatomy and the biomechanics of your hamstrings. We'll talk about
injuries and most importantly dos and don'ts for healing. Along with a simple self-care routine
that you can do in the evening to take care of your hamstrings. Quick disclaimer before we go any
further. If you have a grade three tear, something that's keeping you from moving across the room,
if you had a sports injury-related popping sound, if you're in real pain, please go to the doctor.
This is for educational purposes only. I'm a yoga teacher just sharing my experiences.
Let's start off with the anatomy of your hamstrings. If you take two fingers and poke here,
right at the base of your pelvis, you'll feel a bony structure right? That's your ischial
tuberosity, or your sits bones. Three of your four hamstrings they attach right there and they run
down the back of your leg. Halfway down they meet up with your fourth hamstring. On the lateral side
we have your biceps femoris, on the medial side we have your semimembranosus and semitendinosus.
OK, what does all of that mean? Well we've got a big group of muscles, four in total,
they're biarticular, so they cross the hip and the knee. So our hips are involved in, well,
everything. Our knees are involved in everything. So if we think about major muscles that power some
of our major joints of the body suddenly you start to see this is why hamstring injuries are so,
so common. We are using, using, using our hamstrings all the time. How could
you injure your hamstrings? Overloading them at the gym, overstretching them in a yoga class,
slip and a fall into a full splits, these are sprinting on a track, all these are very common
ways that people injure their hamstrings. Let's talk about the biomechanics of your hamstrings.
How do they move? What do they actually do? On the back of your leg, these muscles when
they contract they lift your hip into extension. This is hip flexion. Hip extension is controlled
by those hamstrings on the back of your leg. Knee flexion is also controlled by your hamstrings. Hip
extension, knee flexion, a little bit of lateral and medial rotation as well. So lots and lots of
movements are controlled by your hamstrings. When it comes to injuries there are three main grades
of injuries. The first, as you might guess, is the most common and that's called a partial thickness
tear. If you think about your hamstring muscles, a partial thickness tear means a little part of
the thickness of the muscle has been torn. With a grade one tear usually most people feel discomfort
but they're able to do their normal life. It's a little bit irritating, but it often comes and goes
throughout the day. The next one would be a grade two tear, and when you have a grade two strain
you'll very often have visible inflammation, maybe even some bruising. And then a grade three tear,
that's like when you see the sprinters who fall over on the track because they've torn
a hamstring, or when someone is deadlifting and their hamstring pops. These are very, very severe,
often right at the point of attachment it's actually torn, and this often requires surgery.
Since the vast majority of hamstring injuries are those grade one strains what does that mean?
It means the majority of hamstring injuries are minor. But then why do they become chronic? Why
do they become major? Because the biggest risk with hamstring injury is actually re-injury. If
you forget everything from this video remember this: if you have a hamstring injury the name
of the game is to not make it worse. Because we use them all the time, because our hamstrings are
involved in so many movements this is challenging. Here's my story. I started practicing yoga when I
was 24 years old and I started going to hot yoga in New York City. Maybe you've done it before.
The room was heated to 100 degrees fahrenheit and the teacher was like a drill sergeant. He
would say "pull, pull, pull". We'd be in these forward bends, grabbing the edges of our feet,
literally pulling on our hamstrings. I was stiff, I didn't know anything about
flexibility. I did not know at the time that heat is an analgesic, meaning it kills pain. And so
as you might guess I got a grade one strain in my hamstrings. A little bit of damage, no big deal,
I thought these are just bumps and bruises as you practice. So I kept coming to class, kept going,
and you probably know where this is going. Very quickly that grade one strain turned into
a grade two strain. I was taking painkillers, combined with the heat, combined with the drill
sergeant "pull, pull, pull". I ended up with a really bad tear. When it was at its worst,
on the right hand side on the back of my knee there was actually a puddle of blood collected
behind my knee. I had internal bleeding from my hamstring and it dripped down the back of my leg.
It was pretty grotesque. Now don't worry, this never happens in yoga. This is the first and the
last time something like this has ever happened in a yoga class. I have taught tens of thousands
of classes, hundreds of thousands of students. I've never seen it before, but it happened to me
and hopefully my bumps and bruises can help you to avoid the same. Now, the story has a happy
ending. My hamstrings, both on my right and left side, they are now completely healed. They're long
and they're strong. I can run, I can stretch, they're actually better than before. However,
I am left with a golf ball sized lump of scar tissue, right here on the back of my leg to this
day. Luckily, most people don't notice it. OK, so if you have an injury and you're wanting to heal
and you want to figure out what to do, the first thing you need to do is ignore pop wisdom, ignore
the common advice. The most common thing that people do is they take ibuprofen. Ibuprofen is
an amazing painkiller and anti-inflammatory drug. That sounds great. You've got a hamstring injury,
you feel some inflammation, you take it, the pain goes away, the inflammation goes away. That
must be healing, right? No, wrong. Inflammation is your body's healing response. It's sending
nutrients to heal that area. When you turn off inflammation you slow down healing.
But even worse than that, when you turn off that pain response, when you're in class like I was,
you can't feel it. And when the teacher says "pull, pull, pull" you pull, pull, pull,
and you continue to damage the injured area. This is the biggest risk of ibuprofen. I'm not saying
don't take ibuprofen. If you need it to sleep, if you need to get through the day, do it. But don't
ever take it before you exercise and definitely don't take it when you're using those hamstrings
in any kind of strong way. The next most common thing you'll hear is RICE - rest, ice, compress,
elevate. All of these things will help you to relieve pain, none of them will help with
healing. This is super old school, nobody does this anymore, but this pop knowledge wisdom still
gets passed down. Resting is good, of course, but ice what that's going to do is vasoconstrict,
so reduce the amount of circulation to the area. That'll alleviate pain, but it's certainly not
going to help with healing. Compression also is vasoconstricting, so it reduces the amount of
circulation, inflammation that can build up. That's good for pain, but not good for healing.
Elevation does the exact same thing. None of those things, rest, ice, compress, elevate,
have anything to do with healing. So what does have to do with healing? It's movement. Why do
we need to move? If you think about a pair of jeans, a pair of denim jeans, and let's imagine
that you had a tear right at the knee. It's probably happened to you before, right? You go
to the tailor and maybe the tailor says "I can fix this really quickly," and he puts a patch, a big
bulky patch there, and just irons it on. No more hole. You go "Yeah, but my jeans feel terrible".
I'm walking around, it's like this big clumsy patch. Think of that like unorganized scar tissue.
Now alternatively you go back to that same tailor, you go "Hey, can you please make this better?"
and the tailor takes off that patch, and puts a very thin layer, and shaves it down, and irons it,
and you can feel it, but just barely. And, mostly, your jeans they work just like before,
almost as good as before. That's what we might call organized scar tissue.
This is why we need to move to heal, so our scar tissue lays down in a functional pattern. But what
we don't need to do is go running marathons. What we don't need to do is go dead lifting,
and what we don't need to do is hot yoga, pull, pull, pull, every single day. We need to take it
easy. Your go-to strategy is walking. I know it's really boring, but it's really, really,
important. You are in full control when you're walking and it's a nice way to gently articulate,
engage, and strengthen, and stress in a positive way, those hamstrings. Remember, whenever you
feel pain we go right up to the line and then we back off. We never cross into the pain threshold,
whether we're strengthening or stretching. Walking is great, cycling is great, if you can get on a
bike that has clips or straps the up pedal is going to allow you to engage your hamstrings
even more, that can be really helpful. Although any cycling is great. And swimming, of course,
is another great exercise. If you have access to a pool or a bike those can be really great. If not,
start walking every single day. What you want to avoid is the really aggressive stuff,
the 100 degree fahrenheit, pull, pull, hot yoga, the sprinting, the running, and especially things
like heavy deadlifting, when you're in that healing phase. How long is the healing phase?
This is another bad news that I have to share with you. It's way, way, longer than they tell you.
If you go to the doctor, if you read stuff online, you'll hear people talking about days and weeks.
There is no hamstring injury that is ever days and weeks. It's always months, and sometimes it's even
over a year. I know that's really bad news, but because we use these muscles all the time
it's very, very difficult, not to aggravate the injury as it's healing. So it ends up taking a
lot longer. Set your sights on months instead of days and weeks. Think about slow moving, stressing
little by little in positive ways, and from there you can make some really big gains. Before we get
into some exercises that you can look at I'd like to talk a little bit about some nutrients that can
be helpful, some supplements that you can take that can be helpful for healing your tissues.
The same things that are good for your skin are very often things that are good for your
soft tissues of your body. And the first one we'll chat about is methylsulfonylmethane,
its nickname is MSM. It comes from pine trees, it's a form of sulfur, sulfur the mineral. It's
really important for new tissue regeneration. It's very inexpensive, very safe, it's water soluble,
and you want to take about a gram a day. I'll put a list down below. The next one is vitamin C,
pretty obvious. Most of you get enough vitamin C already, but when you're trying to heal an injury
it can be helpful to up your intake, maybe even 500 milligrams, or even a gram a day.
You might want to take a buffered form, like with calcium or magnesium, so it's a little
easier on your stomach. The last one is a natural anti-inflammatory, not ibuprofen, but omega-3s
in the form of fish oil, algae oil, or krill oil. I take around a gram per day. I'll put a full list
down below. OK, so we're being really, really, careful with our injury, we're thinking about
a longer timeline, we're taking some nutrients to heal, we're walking every day, and now we need to
start doing some movements. The reason I want to share with you this simple routine is because I
find that most people with injuries before they go to bed they want to do something, and what they do
is they get some weird cream, they dig their elbow in, they have some weird massage tool,
they're trying to break up scar tissue. Most of that stuff what it's doing is just aggravating
the heck out of that injury. What we'd like to do instead is, again, help to positively stress
and organize those connective tissues, so we get functional healing as we go. I'll show you
four different exercises. Full caveat, these are simple. I'm assuming you're in pain,
I'm assuming you want to, like me, walk right up and toe the line to pain, but not cross it,
and so eventually you'll need to scale and grow past these. But this is a really great place
to start. You don't need any equipment and you can do these at home. Let's get into it.
The first pose we'll do is called pointer taps and the idea is to work on hip extension and engage
our hamstrings but very, very gently. We'll start off on our hands and knees, like a child crawling.
Your hands are underneath your shoulders, with your fingers spread. Knees underneath your
hips and your toes are tucked back behind you. Straighten your right leg and point your toe.
Left toes tucked under, right toes are pointed. Gaze right in front of you on the floor, so your
neck stays long. Straighten your back leg all the way and we'll lift up and we'll tap the ground
lightly, we'll tap the ground lightly, we'll tap the ground lightly, and four, five, six, seven,
eight, nine, ten. Put your knee down, switch legs, try to keep your leg as straight as possible.
Point your toe, gaze in front of you, and we'll tap lightly, tap lightly, tap lightly,
and four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Put your knees down. The next one is called
pointer flex. Same idea except instead of lifting your leg we'll hinge at the knee, so we'll flex
our knee. I'll show you how it works. Extend your leg just like before, right toes pointed,
left toes tucked under, and we bend our knee in towards our bum, we straighten down and tap,
bend your knee into your bum, straighten and tap. Gaze in front of you, bend your knee to your bum,
straighten and tap, and again, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. Good. Switch legs.
Left leg extends back behind you, gaze in front of you, leg is all the way straight to begin with,
then we flex our knee, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. Good.
Sit back on your heels, you can shake out your wrist. For the next pose we need a broomstick.
Just take any broom or mop in the house for this next one. This next pose is called broomstick
lifts. I have a broomstick here, step your feet as wide as your hips, the outer edges of your feet
are parallel, soften your knees a little bit, grab onto the broomstick, hinge forward so your hips
go back, keep your back as straight as you can, and go just below your knees. Don't go too far.
And then all the way back up. Inhale on the way down, just below your knees, and then exhale on
the way up. Good. Lower down slowly and back up, that's three. Lower down back slowly,
and that's four. Drag the broomstick along your legs, it's five. Slowly six, slowly seven, hinging
it's eight, slowly it's nine, last one just below your knees and that's 10. We're very
gently loading our hamstrings. As you can imagine, as time goes on you might progress by putting some
weights on the end of a real barbell, but for now we'll just use the broomstick. This last pose is a
supported ragdoll. You need a chair or a stool in front of you. I'll step my feet again, just about
as wide as my hips. I'll soften my knees, hinge at your hips, and very, very slowly, over and
place your hands down on top of the stool, or the chair. I've got a timer here going for one minute,
and I can throttle the intensity by placing my hands higher, or placing my forearms lower,
dropping my head, or keeping my head lifted. Keep the intensity really, really mild. Remember,
we don't want you to push into pain. Walk right up to the edge and then back off just a little bit.
We're working on mobilizing those hamstrings but in a very, very gentle fashion.
Good. Slowly make your way all the way back up and shake it out. You can go through that routine,
those four exercises, three times. So three rounds before bed and if you've been doing
something before bed anyway, like rubbing creams, or massage guns, or anything like that
for hamstring injuries specifically, I recommend you do some movement. Hope this video has been
helpful for you. I just want to recap what we talked about today. The first thing to remember
is that when you're healing a hamstring your number one concern is let's not make it worse,
because when we make it worse we're talking about a very, very, very, long healing journey.
Second thing we talked about is lengthening your healing timeframe, rather than thinking in terms
of days and weeks, you need to think in terms of months. And maybe if you have a serious one it
might take over a year before you're 100 percent recovered. Lastly, we talked about trying to skip
things like ibuprofen, and ice, and heat, and compression. Instead focusing on things that we
know will really help naturally. We chat about some nutrients that could be helpful and lastly
we looked at some corrective exercises that you can do at home. If you'd like more science-based
yoga videos please hit subscribe down below. You can always find my teaching schedule at
yogabody.com and I answer all my comments down below, if you'd like to get in touch.