Hamstring Injuries – Are Your Quads to Blame?

KT Tape is great at helping athletes work through hamstring injuries, but it’s also important to understand why those injuries happen.

Hamstring injuries frequently start small, and then grow to agonizing proportions.  They are also notoriously slow to heal, keeping athletes out of the mix for weeks at a time.  Stretching can mitigate the risk, but according to many experts, over training your quadriceps may put extra strain on the hamstring.

“Hamstring difficulties are common among runners, with strains, “pulls,” tendinitis and tears the most common maladies. Why are hamstring issues so common? Most distance runners have developed a situation known as “quad dominance,” a situation that occurs when the quad muscles overpower the action of the hamstrings in the movement of the leg during a running stride.
Logging a lot of miles on the roads can place repetitive functional overload on the quadriceps, making them strong, powerful and dominant. When the quadriceps contract as you land, the opposing muscles, the hamstrings, act as brakes to stop your knee from hyper-extending at the end movement of a stride.”-- Sarah Scholl, CrossFit Trainer and Conditioning Coach

Here are some good exercises to help balance the equation and strengthen your hamstring, and perhaps reduce the risk of injury.

Filed under: Uncategorized | December 22, 2009
Tags :Hamstring , injuries , KT Tape , muscle strain