Causes of a Pulled Hamstring

Forces more than 70% make the hamstring muscle more susceptible to an injury. This extra stress placed on the hamstring muscles and tendons can occur during: Active sports that require speed, power and agility (soccer, football, baseball, softball, basketball, rugby, tennis) or track & field activities that involve a lot of jumping, kicking, running and fast "stop/start" motions with your legs (sprints, hurdles, long jump). During vigorous activities we often load our hip joint by up to eight times our body weight.

Individual activities can put a lot of continuous pressure on your hamstrings (running, water skiing, skating, cheerleading, dancing, weight lifting, climbing). These athletes are susceptible to chronic pulls as a result of the repetitive nature of their activities. They often suffer from avulsion fractures following a burst of speed.

Muscle exhaustion and fatigue decrease your strength, power and endurance which increase your risk for injury. Over-stretching, overexertion and overuse of your hamstring muscles occurs frequently in sporting activities and/or daily life. When you have not warmed-up and stretched properly before moving, your muscles aren't ready for the stress, therefore your chances for injury are increased. Doing too much, too soon, too fast, or exercising and moving about in cold weather, puts you at even more risk for a pulled hamstring. Sometimes you will get a pulled hamstring doing very simple tasks like landing in a strange way from a jump, aggressively stretching in yoga class, or running after your kids or the bus.

Utilizing a poor technique (over-striding in running or walking), improper equipment (old shoes) or hard and uneven training surfaces during activities will often put your body at a higher risk for injury. These will also make you feel more tired as the inefficient movements require you to use more energy to complete tasks than required.

Repeated hamstring injuries are very common. They decrease the function and strength of your hamstring over time, and encourage inflammation, scar tissue and calcification development, so these damaged parts never heal properly. Impatience and incomplete rehabilitation (not letting injuries heal, so your body can return to peak performance level) is often the reason for repeat injury. This is seen most frequently in runners. Previous injuries to your lower back, pelvis, knees, calf and/or achilles tendon can also instigate a hamstring injury (especially if they haven't healed properly).

The above causes are often self-imposed; which means with a little self-management you can have some control over the outcomes. However, the following conditions can make you more prone to hamstring injuries and be the cause of a number of the above situations.

Muscle imbalances or weakness in your muscles (especially in your hamstrings and quadriceps, or your lower back and pelvis muscles) can cause strength differences and poor coordination that result in a pulled hamstring. Your quadriceps often overpower your hamstrings (generally if hamstring strength is less than 60% of quad strength), which is seen frequently with triathletes as they mix running and cycling.

Tight hamstring muscles often result from not stretching properly before your activities. However, shortened and tightened muscles, spine stiffness and poor flexibility can be hereditary and/or a side-effect of aging; it is seen more frequently in men than women. All of these can cause a lot of pressure on your body (low back stiffness can pressure your sciatic nerve which causes your muscles to tighten) and require a lot of work on your part (daily stretching).

Alignment issues, leg length discrepancies, or overpronation or supination (which affects the way your foot hits the ground when you walk) can put a lot of stress on your hamstring muscles and result in a pulled hamstring. Overpronation occurs in at least 60% of people with hamstring strains.

Other factors that can put extra tension on your hamstring and influence your risk of experiencing a pulled hamstring include:

• Poor fitness levels and lack of exercise
• Poor nutrition and obesity
• Posture irregularities (lumbar lordosis)
• Meniscal injuries
• Neural tension (scar tissue around the nerves)

Treating Your Hamstring Pull

If you have a hamstring pull or strain, resting it is recommended. Avoid activities that cause pain or may have caused the strain and begin cold compression treatments as soon as possible.

There are healing tools that can help treat your hamstring pull and speed up the healing process so you can reduce your pain and get back to daily life. Ultrasound thereapy is an easy and effective way to promote healing in your muscles while reducing the amount of scar tissue that forms during the healing process. Blood Flow Stimulation Therapy^™ (BFST^®) will promote blood flow to heal your hamstring pull faster and more completely than any other methods available.

Freezie Wrap^® Cold Compression Therapy

To decrease inflammation of your muscle pull when the strain first occurs doctor's recommend cold compression therapy. For an acute strain, cold compression therapy within the first 48 - 72 hours and after any restrain is important to limit the amount of damage done to your tissue. Cold compression therapy will relieve pain and swelling as needed and will reduce, or even eliminate, the need for NSAIDs and pain medications.

The Leg/Arm Freezie Wrap^® is the cold compression tool you need to treat your hamstring pain in an effective and convenient way. It is so versatile it can be worn anywhere on your body, wherever you need treatment.

Cold Compression Therapy works by interrupting and slowing nerve and cell function in the injured area and reducing swelling that can block blood vessels. This is important because once blood vessels are blocked or damaged, they can no longer carry oxygenated blood through your hamstring muscles and tissue cells begin to break-down. Without cold compression therapy cellular break-down and tissue damage continues as the cells do not get the oxygen they need to survive. By limiting the amount of damage done to your tissue, you also limit the amount of healing that needs to occur. This is a very important step to heal your muscle strain faster and with less pain!

The deep cooling effect provided by the Freezie Wrap^® slows cell metabolism thereby reducing cellular break-down and tissue damage. Furthermore, because the cold wraps gently numb the nerves, the wraps also reduce pain!

The Freezie Wrap^® uses a supercharged cooling gel pack, that chills in the fridge, not in the freezer like ice or other freezer packs, giving you deep cold therapy without the risk of 'cold burns' or cryoburn.

Click here to learn more about Cold Compression Freezie Wraps^®

Ultrasound Therapy

Ultrasound therapy is a great therapeutic option to compliment your BFST^® treatments. Ultrasound therapy will decrease inflammation and pain and soften scar tissue. Therapeutic ultrasonic waves increase tissue elasticity while promoting healing in your hamstring muscles by opening up the blood vessels to allow greater blood flow.

If you are experiencing pain in your hip, knee, or ankle because of your hamstring injury, you can use therpeutic ultrasound to treat these areas as well. With hamstring pain you often readjust your posture and gait to take the pressure off. This puts extra pressure on other parts of your body and can cause strain. Using a home ultrasound will allow you to treat all the areas that need to heal easily and help you maintain a healthier body.

During the healing process, scar tissue builds up to 'repair' the damaged tissue. Unfortunately, scar tissue can bind your muscle fibers and other tissue together abnormally. The inflexible scar tissue causes more pain and limits range of motion.

If scar tissue is left untreated, your hamstring may stiffen making movement difficult and in some cases, impossible. At the very least, scar tissue leaves your muscles weaker, leaving you at greater risk of further injury. Fortunately, you can treat your hamstring muscles with MendMeShop^® Ultrasound System to soften scar tissue and improve the tightness in your leg.

Ultrasound can also be used to administer therapeutic medicines deep into your injured hamstring muscles. This is a process known as phonophoresis. Ultrasound therapy with phonophoresis is rapidly becoming more popular than ultrasound therapy alone.

Therapeutic ultrasound with phonophoresis is safe, convenient, and easy and requires 5-10 minutes per treatment. It is based on a form of deep tissue therapy, which is generated through high frequency sound waves (that we can not hear). These waves send micro vibrations into your body and carry medicated molecules within the ultrasound gel deep into your muscle tissue to enhance your ultrasound therapy. Ultrasound waves and medicated ultrasound gel penetrate deep to relax your muscles, decrease inflammation and accelerate your recovery rate, so you can return to your daily activities as soon as possible.

Using MendMeShop^® Lavender Infusion Ultrasound Gel during your ultrasound therapy gives you 2 therapies in 1. You get the benefit of the regenerating sound waves from the ultrasound device itself AND the added bonus of the therapeutic ingredients inside the gel being delivered into your hamstring muscles where it is most effective to reduce your pain and heal. 1 FREE bottle of MendMeShop^® Lavender Infusion Ultrasound Gel comes with every MendMeShop^® Ultrasound Systemand it contains the therapeutic essential oils of natural Bulgarian lavender, peppermint, eucalyptus, and menthol.

Click here to learn more about Ultrasound Therapy

Once the inflammation of your hamstring pull has been reduced, nourishing and strengthening the muscle tissue and surrounding area is recommended. Using Blood Flow Stimulation Therapy^™ will speed your recovery and heal your muscle fibers more completely preparing them for strengthening exercises. Talk to your doctor or physical therapist to find out which exercises are appropriate for your situation.

Inferno Wrap^® Blood Flow Stimulation Therapy^™

After severe inflammation and swelling is reduced you can begin to treat your hamstring with Blood Flow Stimulation Therapy^™ (BFST^®). BFST^® increases the amount of blood that flows naturally to your muscle fibers to nourish your soft tissue which speeds healing.

When you rest your leg and stop moving around because it hurts, the natural blood flow to your muscles is reduced, limiting your body's ability to heal itself.

By treating your hamstring muscles with BFST^® you can increase your body's blood supply to the muscle fibers and increase your body's natural healing power.

The Inferno Wrap^® is the tool you need to treat your sore hamstring because not only does it speed healing, it relaxes all your muscles. With BFST^®, tissues are safely and gently stimulated. Your body responds with a rapid increase in blood flow to the area, increasing the supply of oxygen and nutrients to injured tissue cells to promote healing and loosen the tissue. Our Leg/Arm Inferno Wrap^® provides effective, non-invasive, non-addictive pain relief and healing with no side effects.

In addition, the improved blood flow whisks away dead cells and toxins that have built up from your hamstring strain, further reducing tightness and pain. When you stop moving your leg due to hamstring pain, your muscles and other tissue can become weaker and dead cells and toxins in the area can cause further tissue deterioration - this can lead to atrophy (muscle weakness and/or deterioration). By clearing the area of toxins and increasing the amount of oxygen and nutrients to your muscle and other tissue, the risk of atrophy is greatly reduced. Keeping your leg muscle tissue as healthy as possible throughout the healing process will allow you to improve leg and hip strength again once your pain has gone and your strain has healed.

Click here to learn more about how BFST^® and Inferno Wraps^® work.

With these 3 easy therapies, cold compression, ultrasound and BFST^®, you will notice significantly reduced pain and an incredible improvement in your hamstring pain.

During your recovery, you may have to modify and/or eliminate any activities that cause pain or discomfort in your hamstring until your pain and inflammation settle. The more diligent you are with your treatment and rehabilitation, the faster you will see successful results!

Please be aware that this information is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider before starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

Or email us at service@MendMeShop.com