Any success making a full recovery from high hamstring tendon tear?

[Paul Clay]

Hi All,

I'm at about month 20 of recovering from a high hamstring tendon injury.  It's been a sllloooowww process. Fortunately, after months of plateaued recovery progress (or even regression), I discovered that *stretching* was the source of my lack of progress.   I've stopped stretching my hamstrings completely.  I'm as stiff as I've ever been but my hamstring is finally healing.  Though I'm still only probably at 90% recovery.  

I'm nervous about how to return to developing hamstring mobility.  Does anyone else have experience with returning to stretching a hamstring after an injury?    Is there a protocol for returning to stretching?  Because most therapists only deal with getting patients back normal ROM, I can't find any materials on what, say, a gymnast would do to return to competition after a hamstring tendon injury (or any tendon/muscle involved in extended ROMs).  

Thanks!

[Alessandro Mainente]

Hi Paul, usually after the pain it is completely gone I prefer first to increase the strength and the capilarization of the tissue with an high reps program and then I would add some stretch. i had a groin injury and before attempting again some stretch I needed to completely heal. situation can change if there is only muscles involvement or there is a minor tear in some tendons.

[Paul Clay]

Thanks for the response Alessandro!  It's good to hear of other tendon related healing.  Yeah, I've been leaning towards being 100% healed before attempting any progressive stretching (vs integrating stretching into the rehab program) It's very frustrating though.  Straddle stretch completely inflames the tendon and so does front split somewhat.  I'm doing a weight training+foundations fusion since I can't do a lot of the foundation exercises.

How did you determine when something was 100% healed?  Did you gradually ease back into stretching?

In line with the high rep programming you mention, the most success Ive had is doing daily eccentric single leg machine curls (ad nauseum).  

I'm basing my rehab on the protocols described here:

http://tria.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Rehab-of-Hamstring-Injuries_Tyler.pdf

 

[Mark Collins]

Unfortunately any type of hamstring stretching will compress the tendon and make it worse. So you need to avoid it for a long time. Also sitting will compress the tendon.

Eccentrics are good but you also need to do lots of slow concentric work. The hamstring strength work in foundation 2-4 is gold for rehab. Alternatively lots of single leg hamstring curls building up to sled pushes. Sled pushes can be done for strength and build to sprints to getvthe plyometric component back. Then progress to using a scooter or skateboard.

[Paul Clay]

Yeah, and what's a bummer is that deep squats stretch/compress the hamstrings, so any deep squatting is out for me.  

I know *slow* concentric work is a popular bodybuilding technique, creates "time under tension".  I actually have been doing a bodybuilding program (due to not being able to do a lot of foundations) and I've noticed my hamstring is happier.  There's some slow work in the program (15 rep sets with minumum 1min total time under tension).

Hammy curls have been the foundation of my recovery so far.  Also Single Leg RDL's seem to help.  Sled pushes hadn't occurred to me, but interesting idea.   What do you mean, scooter/skateboard?   You mean like razor scooter rehab?  haha.  I'll need to go buy a sparkly helmet to match.

[Mark Collins]

Using a skateboard builds explosive strength for the hamstrings. The downside is you will have to hang out atbthe skatepark with kids.