Sebastian Brosche · 13 min · 979 words
Previously titled: Video 2 - Hamstring Rehab
Hi everyone, welcome back. This is day two of our hamstring rehab program. So today I'm going to need a few tools. I've got my foam roller here.
I've got a light stick, so a broomstick is perfect, curtain pole. I've had people use a golf club or an umbrella as well, that's fine. I'm going to use a bench or a chair and I've got a step. So bottom step would be a staircase or a thick book.
Either of those things works. Okay, but to start with, I'm going to put everything else to one side. I'm just going to grab my foam roller and I'm going to start by just doing a little bit of work into the back of the hamstring. Now, it's important we don't do this when the injury is too fresh.
So in the first few days in particular after the injury, maybe even up to a week, there's a risk that we can aggravate things further if we do a lot of this. So I'm going to wait until it's settled down and that's when the foam roller comes into its own. So I don't want to hang out there for too long. I don't want to hang out on the sore spots and make them really painful.
I'm just going backwards and forwards. There might be some mild discomfort, but no more. Okay, from there I'm just going to pop my foam roller to one side and we're going to go straight into a hamstring bridge. So I want my knees at about 90 degrees here.
It's not like a jujitsu bridge where I've got my feet right up close towards me and all I'm going to do is I'm just going to push up and I'm going to hold that position. I'm pushing down through my heels. Now, if this is particularly painful or if it's starting to cramp and you can push less hard, sometimes I'll just get people just pushing down into the floor without even lifting their hips when they first start doing this. Okay, so do it at whatever level feels okay to you without pushing into sharp pain.
And relax. And we're going to go one more. And then from there I'm going to grab my chair or my bench. Sometimes we'll just even use a stack of cushions.
So I'm going to elevate the leg. I want to ideally take it to the point where I can start to feel a little bit of a pull into the hamstring, just a tiny bit. And what I'm going to do from there is I'm just going to bend and straighten that ankle. So I should be feeling a bit of a stretch all the way down behind the knee down into the calf.
And I do that. It's important I don't try and take the foot, the leg too high on this one. I don't want to aggravate the hamstring by yanking on it at this point. And from there I'm going to go back to that hip bridge position and we're just going to repeat this.
And rest there. Bring the foot up. And last time. And rest.
Now if this is feeling quite comfortable and quite easy, I can even link my hands behind my leg. Get the leg a little bit higher there. If you're getting a strain in this position, then start lower down. Okay, for the next exercise we're going to use our stick.
So I'm going to use the stick, put that behind my back. And the purpose of the stick is to try and tell me whether my back's straight. So I'm going to touch the back of my head and the bottom of my spine and the middle of my upper back as well. So all my hands are doing is just keeping the stick against where I don't need to grip it really hard.
I'm just going to place it there. Now if that happens, I know that I'm bending my back, which is not what I want to do for this exercise. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to lean forward from the hips, keep the back nice and straight. I'm just going to go until I feel a gentle pull on the hamstrings.
So you may feel that in the area of the injury. And it may come on quite quickly, so I may only be getting a small movement at first. If that's the case, that's absolutely fine. I'm just going to keep with that small movement.
You may find that you can gradually increase the range as you go on, but I don't want to force it. That's really important. So it's a mobilisation, but it's not a stretch. I'm going to pop the stick to one side.
I'm going to find my step. We're just going to do a set of step-ups. So the idea is I'm lifting with the leg that's on top. I'm not pushing off the leg that's underneath if I can avoid it.
So if you need to do that a little bit to start with, that's fine, but I want to try and do it as little as possible. So we're just going to stick with the one leg for now. Grab the stick and do another set of these. Back to the step.
Now some of you may find that two sets of those exercises is enough. If you're starting to feel it's a little bit irritable, that's probably a good place to stop. If you're still feeling good, then we'll do one more set. And rest there.
So that's all for day two of our programme. So hopefully things will be starting to settle down now and day three we'll get into a little bit more strength work as well.
This is the transcript. Become a member to watch the video.
Watch now →.avif)