The horrible hamstring
Jun. 19th, 2007 08:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flexagonI went to gymnastics and ate about a trillion fruits and vegetables yesterday (all right... 7 or 8). After weeks of treating my horrible hamstring with a home ultrasound unit and stretching it and working it, it is also getting better (again). Hurray!
I'm becoming convinced that strength work is the key to mending a torn muscle. Not only that, but it's good for pain control. A set of hamstring curls on the stability ball seems to reset things: no, stupid muscle, THIS is what hurts... not walking. See? Self-myofascial release on the foam roller also is good. Despite gains in functionality, though, it's hard to tell when I'm working it too hard. I think I did so last night. Stupid cartwheels.
Most people have a bad strength imbalance between quads and hamstrings, increasing the odds of hamstring injury. A study in the latest Men's Health recommends doing twice as many sets of hamstring work as quad/glute work, or at least says that men who did this for 6 weeks basically evened out the strength imbalance. I've been switching up my lower-body workouts a lot lately, and wow, it's kind of hard to do even an equal number. :-/
I'm becoming convinced that strength work is the key to mending a torn muscle. Not only that, but it's good for pain control. A set of hamstring curls on the stability ball seems to reset things: no, stupid muscle, THIS is what hurts... not walking. See? Self-myofascial release on the foam roller also is good. Despite gains in functionality, though, it's hard to tell when I'm working it too hard. I think I did so last night. Stupid cartwheels.
Most people have a bad strength imbalance between quads and hamstrings, increasing the odds of hamstring injury. A study in the latest Men's Health recommends doing twice as many sets of hamstring work as quad/glute work, or at least says that men who did this for 6 weeks basically evened out the strength imbalance. I've been switching up my lower-body workouts a lot lately, and wow, it's kind of hard to do even an equal number. :-/
