[Music]
Hi guys!
This video is about high hamstring
tendinopathy and why you should
really, really, really not be doing
hamstring stretches
or glute stretches, to be honest, if you
have got a high hamstring tendinopathy.
So, I'll explain to you… I'm going to do a
quick recap of what high hamstring
tendinopathy is and the pathology
involved,
and then why stretching is bad for it
and likely is the reason why your
symptoms aren't settling down,
and then thirdly, what you should be
doing if you've got one.
So, for those of you who don't know me: my
name is Maryke. I'm one of the
physiotherapists from
sportsinjuryphysio.com, where you can get
online physiotherapy assessment as well
as treatment of your sports injuries.
So have a look at the description of
this video if you want a link to our
website.
Okay, so what is high hamstring
tendinopathy and why does it develop?
The high hamstring tendon attaches to
your sit bone… so…
right there. And
because it's so close to the bone, it's
quite vulnerable to compression because
in certain positions, in certain
movements you do, the tendon wraps around
that bone.
And what happens is, there are two main
reasons why this
injury develops: One is that
over stretching is one of the main
things because when you do
lots of deep hamstring stretches that
cause compression of that tendon
against the bone and it eventually
injures it
and makes it painful. Actually I said
two causes…
Three… there are three. The the second one
is: sitting on really hard surfaces for
long periods of time
again compresses the tendon against
the bone
and causes it to become injured and get
the tendinopathy.
And the third is from sports. So any
sports where you
take the leg out in front of you quite
hard and you work it really hard
can lead to overload on that tendon. So
we're thinking of hill running, sprints,
those are actually the two main type
of things that get it. Oh cycling as
well:
Where you’re in that position bent over and
you do a lot of hard cycling for lots of
hours
that causes quite a lot of compression
of the tendon onto the bone.
So compression is a massive part of
why high hamstring tendinopathy develops.
Now for some reason, there are still a
lot of physiotherapists,
a lot of rehab therapists, you name it.
Name them what you want, doctors even,
telling patients with high hamstring
tendinopathy to stretch their tendons.
And it just makes it so much worse! The
poor patients I see
often come to me saying: “I've been so
diligent stretching my tendon, but it's
just getting worse and worse and worse.”
And then you listen to them,
and for three months they've been
stretching the living daylights out of
the tendon because they've been told to
do that.
But all it does is, it wrap that tendon
around the bone
and it just increases the pain you feel
from it. So,
it can make the injury worse, because
remember over stretching and compression
is part of the injury process
but also it's just like poking a bruise
the whole time. So it becomes
super super sensitive and it's amazing
to see how quickly their pain levels
come down
when they stop doing those stretches. The
other
type of stretch… is not just hamstring
stretches that do that:
I also find that any of the glute
stretches. So typically your figure four
stretch, like so, to get. Just make it
clear, a hamstring stretch is anything
where you take the leg
up and bring it back so that would
cause it to strain there. But it's
also the same thing:
A hamstring stretch is anything where
you lean forwards with it, whether you
put your leg
up and lean forwards, or standing leaning
forwards, or sitting leaning forwards…
anything that has the leg out in front
of you
while you're leaning down causes that
compression.
Now for glute stretches, the typical one
people tend to do
is figure four stretch, like this. Now
actually, that stretches the higher
hamstring just as much.
Same thing for anything where it crosses
over because of where it attaches…
that can cause it to compress and be
painful.
So if you're doing any of those type of
stretches do stop doing them for a while
and just see how it goes, because
all of those things I've seen in the
past really aggravated… but definitely,
the hamstring stretches,
just don't do them, you do not need them.
Yes it can feel tight in that area but
that tightness is because of the injury,
it's not because of true muscle
tightness. That tightness will disappear
as your injury heals without any
stretching. You do not need to stretch to
get the tightness to go.
It will go when your tissue becomes
healthy. So
what do you need to do if you've got
this:
It's about taking out the aggravating
factors, so
if you find that, well, the stretches
you're doing, stop doing them.
It's important to manage your sitting
and what you sit on and things, and I've
made a whole video about that as well
that you can look at.
But then it's important to strengthen
the tendon, and again there are various
different exercises that you can do to
strengthen that…
the tendon. But if you've googled it,
you've likely seen that most often it's
bridges that people do.
Yes, and that works for a lot of
people, but there's
different types of bridges to do. So, some
people can only start with bridges,
feet on floor. Others need to start with
them on high. Others can't do bridges
because bridges make it feel worse;
they've got to start with other
exercises.
So, there are plenty of different rehab
exercises depending on your tendon, which
part you've injured, how sensitive it is,
that you could start with. So it's best
to get some guidance on that.
But the main mission of this video is to
tell you that if you're
doing hamstring stretches and you've got
high hamstring pain,
please stop doing them because they're
not helpful and it's the wrong advice.
Okay, if you need any help with an injury
or you've got some questions, you can
message
in the comments. But if you need help
with an injury, have a look:
the link to our website is in the
description of this video.
Take care!
[Music]