- Do you get any more of those hearts?
- Yeah, I think I got all of them, oh, don't even have one.
Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together, we are the most famous physical therapist
on the internet.
- Well, I know opinion, of course, Bob.
- Let's explain that at the end.
Right now, Brad, we're gonna talk
about top three treatments for hamstring injury.
And basically, what we're gonna do is break it down
to the three phases.
- Sure. - So.
- Initially the first phase,
say your child is playing football
or whatever activity or you are, and you feel
that pain limping. - Yeah, right here,
behind the thigh.
- Yep. - They're the ones
where you grab on.
- Sometimes it's a little higher up
towards the buttock. - Yeah, in the butt,
quite often too.
- So, what are the first thing that everyone says to do?
Go stretch it out.
- [Bob and Brad] No.
- Do not go out and stretch
an injury right away. - No.
- It's just got tore a little bit, maybe,
hopefully not too bad. - Right.
- And then you're just gonna go ahead
and stretch it and re-injure it again.
- You're gonna disrupt the healing process,
basically. - Exactly.
You want to give that at least five days
before you start stretching.
- Right. - Then it's gonna be
gentle stretching.
- Gentle stretches, right.
- So the thing you do wanna do for sure
is get a cold pack on it. - Right.
- Get comfortable and give it some time
to start the healing process.
- Exactly, and you're probably, I mean, with some people
even they might even need crutches.
- Right. - I mean, possibly.
If it's real bad. - Symptoms will guide you,
a sharp pain.
Crutches takes a pain away, go ahead and use them.
- Generally, more bruising in the case
that it's a lot more serious too.
- Right. - And that means
things were disrupted and torn.
- Right. - So.
- So cold pack, 20 minutes,
you can go up to three times per day,
and more if it's really helpful.
The next thing after that first few days
is starting to feel a little bit better,
you can go to cross friction massage.
- So, that's basically phase two.
- Right. - Okay.
So one way, (chair clanks)
I mean, it'd be nice if you have someone
who'll do it for you.
- Right.
- But basically, what you're gonna do,
if it's the, a lot of hamstring pulls are in the mid thigh.
So that's halfway between the knee and the butt.
And in that case, you can just go ahead,
you can put your foot up on a chair like this
with your knee bent.
- Here, let's get at an angle, so they can
get a profile there. - Oh, sure.
And that way the muscle's relaxed.
And basically, I'm just taking and rubbing back and forth
with my fingers here, and rubbing very, very deep
over the muscle itself.
- So he's hooking his fingers.
- Yeah. - So the fingertips
are getting in there. - Right.
- Not the flat palm or the flat part
of the finger. - Some people go
like this too.
They actually are kind of making like a-
- We do have a video on cross friction massage.
- Right. - So maybe you could look
that up as well.
- Now you can also, if it's all the way up
to the butt bone there,
you can actually do that in this position too.
And now, this is actually probably the better position
for doing this.
- Yeah. - On that one.
And I'm rubbing really, really deep and really, really hard.
- I wouldn't do that in public.
- I probably wouldn't do (Brad laughs)
that in public either, but-
- It is a good treatment.
- Now, you can go ahead and you can do this everyday,
and you can do it for 5 to 10 minutes.
- Right. - You're gonna,
your fingers are gonna wear out
before you should, you know, you wanna stop.
- And, right. - This is a big muscle,
so you can really work it hard.
- Right.
So you're gonna know it's right,
because after about a minute, it starts to feel better.
- Right.
- If it gets hurt more and more pain after a minute,
it's not ready yet.
- Yeah, then you may, if it starts hurting more and more
as you're doing it, you may have to go back to the ice
for a while, that'd be best. - Right, exactly.
Back to phase one.
- Yeah. - Another option for phase two
is a six inch roller.
- Sure. - Okay.
You're gonna get a firm one, okay.
(chair clanks)
You can, you don't wanna do it on a bed or something soft.
You wanna go down on a hard floor or
a carpeted floor. - [Bob] You've long a minute
to get down there.
- Yeah, and we're gonna get down there.
Put it there.
Now, if it's in the mid, Gary, you'll know where it is.
'Cause you'll feel the tender spot.
You're gonna use your arms to support
and just roll back and forth over that.
Try and keep that leg relaxed.
And it's gonna be a little uncomfortable,
but again after you work at four minute or so,
it should start to feel a little bit better.
You know, you might have to go way up
to that issue to veracity up
in the buttock area. - [Bob] Yeah, it's
in the butt bone.
- And- - [Bob] Sit bone.
- You're gonna do that about the same amount of time,
three to five minutes, you'll know.
- [Bob] Right. - 'Cause it'll start
to feel better and you'll feel like, I say enough.
Okay.
- [Bob] You can do both too.
You can foam roll it and cross fiber.
- [Brad] Yeah, double whammy.
- [Bob] Yep, you bet.
- Once it starts to feel better with those techniques,
then you wanna start to strengthen the muscle.
And at that point you can start
to stretch it. - Stretch it, yeah.
- But again, I wouldn't get real aggressive,
some gentle stretching.
So in other words,
if you're able to do this kind of a stretch,
keep the knees straight and bend forward.
Now, it's not gonna take much. - Gently, right.
- Right, you're not gonna pull higher and think,
oh, stretch it all.
"No pain, no gain." - Right, and I'll get better.
No, not in this case. - No.
Right, so gentle stretching you can do it like that.
(chair clanks)
Probably, especially if you're a little older.
- Can you do it this way?
- You can do it in a chair like that or just like this.
- Yep. - Okay.
Then we wanna strengthen it.
At home, I personally, you know, Bob, I'm a big advocate
of the ball. - Yep, the physio ball.
- [Brad] Yep. - [Bob] Oh, wait,
let me throw it to you. (chair clanks)
- Okay, throw it, Bob.
(ball thuds on floor) Okay.
We always like to have some fun, you know.
All right.
The nice thing about the ball is it's cheap,
20-30 bucks, you can get a good one, 20 bucks, you can.
You can do it at home.
And they strengthen your core
while they strengthen the muscle you're working on.
- [Bob] Sure.
So, just warm it up a little bit like this,
this is not gonna strengthen it.
Then you might go to next phase of just push down in,
(Brad thumps on thigh) all hamstrings, working there.
Isometrics, hold it for 8 to 10 seconds, three times,
if that's feeling good,
you're ready to go onto the real McCoy.
Just like this, straighten the knees out,
(Brad thumps on floor) hands out.
So you gotta support lift your butt up in the air,
and pull it up to you and back.
Again, it should be relatively pain free.
The only thing you should feel is fatigue,
muscle fatigue in those hamstrings.
And believe me, you will, after you do this
for a couple weeks or so,
you might be able to advance to the single leg.
And once you get to the single leg, you're already playing.
- [Bob] Yep. - You know, that's-
- [Bob] You're back into sports.
- Then you're in the maintenance mode,
so it doesn't happen again.
- [Bob] So.
- I like to do three sets of 10 of those works great.
And anything else you got to say, Bob?
- No, I think that was just a good progression
to showing, kind of quickly how you want to go
from the start to finish of a hamstring injury.
- You better believe it.
- How's your mic there?
- Yeah, I think it's, I thought you're gonna talk about,
we can just about cure anything except for...
- A broken heart.
- A broken heart. - We've trouble fixing
those broken hearts.
- But we're working on it, we got some red duct tape,
and we're thinking that maybe we can kind of work it.
Those heart surgeons are really gonna be after us,
once we get this figured out. - Yeah, no kidding.