Not as grandiose as "the secret", but it goes like this: This is one of our track & field athletes who has a grade 1 strain of his left semimembranosis from this past weekend. He has an important meet coming up today so I came up with a plan of action:I pulled him out of practice for 4 days and we did his workouts in the pool; primarily done as combinations of deep water sprints. I supplemented this with plenty of soft tissue work. Graston the first 3 days. I used mainly sweeping strokes to reduce muscle spasm. Today before the meet I did ART. It is important to remember ART is not simply a "pin & stretch" technique. If you do it right, you are not going to get anywhere near their full range of motion. Once you take up the myofascial tension, hip & knee extension will limited.
We followed it up with my favorite hamstring stretch. The affected leg is placed on a bench or chair with the toe pulled toward the head. The contralateral foot is on the floor slightly toed out. The torso is forwardly flexed just enough to meet the muscle barrier. At that point, the hip is actively internally/externally rotated as the arms drive in the opposite direction of the foot for about 30 seconds.
Will the plan work? I've effectively used it many times before with lower extremity muscle injuries, but who knows.
2 comments:
Great plan Joe. I use that stretch for all my hamstrings. I follow it with what they call a bird feeder. I'll send you the pictures. Let me know what you think about it.
Good topic Jonathon. Personally, I'm not really a fan of Good Morning/RDL and their derivatives for hamstring rehab/prevention. I am also very much in the minority! Think I'll try to sell my point in my next post.
Post a Comment