Day 8 of hamstring tear rehab: staying active and on the team

You're listening to the Restoring Human Movement podcast, where movement experts discuss the latest evidence-based practices to help you and your clients move with mastery. Hey everyone, it's your co-host Sebastian with the Restoring Human Movement podcast. Thanks for joining the show with me. If you've been listening to the show recently, we've been doing some on hips and groins and runners, and I've also been doing a short series on my hamstring tear. I did do a YouTube series we are calling the four-week virtual surgery for hamstrings. Most people don't get hamstring surgeries, but I know a lot of people think, well, maybe I need surgery for this. I'm not quite the same anymore.

So this is my fourth hamstring, or third hamstring tear, fourth hamstring injury. One was just a strain, I believe, because it didn't really bruise. But you can see all the progress that I've made with my rehab on YouTube. I will put a link in the description for the podcast. So today is day eight, actually. So it's Monday. I tore it last Sunday. And I wanted to give you just some updates of what happened over the weekend and how I'm feeling mentally now. And perhaps it'll give you guys some insight of what you should expect one week removed. So last week I recorded the week one and two rehab exercises.

And I suffered the second week just to make sure that I had time to record. I am still doing isometric work. To be honest, once I was not going to work because I didn't work Sunday and Saturday, I kind of forgot my structure. So I did it once a day instead of twice. I know this morning already I should have done it already because you can do it every eight hours, but I didn't do it. So I need to make sure that I am doing it once I get to the office here and I can do it amongst doing paperwork and calling people back and so on. Now, I went to play some smash ball two days ago at the beach. I played for about 20, 30 minutes.

It was very tame. If you played smash ball before, you know that you're kind of just it's like a racket and a ball. It's like almost like ping pong without a table, but at the beach in the sand. And so it was there was definitely positions like because in my left leg, if a ball went low to that left leg and I had to paddle it up kind of away from my left foot. It would hurt a little bit. And so I kind of let those ones go. So this is I personally think that if you're going to be active for the first few weeks or so, you need to also make good choices and realize when where your returns are diminishing and that that volley was was not going to be good.

So I did dive a little bit, as we know, with the videos that you'll see on YouTube, that planks and diving type of positions were completely OK. Jumping up from the left leg is being the leap leg. Not OK. And I can even pivot onto that leg. I did do a workout last week where we did a version of a pow off press. I did it with a guy that I train with because everybody needs someone to train with. And so at the beach, it felt pretty good. My my wife was pretty concerned and she's like, you sure we should be doing this? I said, I think I'll be OK. I'm going to use paint as my guide and I need to stay active.

Like there's no reason to not do other things. So I can if you were, you know, back in the stone age and you hurt your leg, you would eventually have to start walking and walking. Yeah, that's, you know, one thing. But maybe sprinting around unnecessarily, maybe not. And I do recall that with a lot of hamstring injuries and I've personally experienced this is this is that acceleration you can do a little bit more willingly than attaining a top speed. So the first few steps, you'll probably be OK. But once your leg starts to elongate or knee starts to elongate, you won't be OK. But the cool thing was by sorry, not spike ball, pickleball, pickleball, smash ball, which I love is I get my vitamin D.

I get my feet in the sand and the steps are generally about like two steps or so. There are balls that you can dive for and they go higher so you can run further. But again, kind of let those go. We also took a long walk on the beach as well. I got to play around with the dog, which was OK. I took videos of me walking in the sand. You can see what my walk looked like. I am limping still a little bit. But overall, I consider this is like I mean, I don't want to say 90 percent from last Sunday because I still can't really run and I can't single leg hinge on the left leg. But like for day to day stuff, this is 90 percent for sport.

This is like 50 because I still can't do a lot of things on that same note. I did go to the baseball game yesterday and I showed up at the field. The guys were actually surprised that I was going to come. I didn't want to commit, but I did end up showing up. I put my jersey on. I put my pants on. I put my cleats on. I went to hit in the cage. That was OK. That felt fine. What was a little awkward was the cage. Sometimes the environment or the footing matters. And so I put my cleats on. I want to make sure I didn't slip. Can you imagine slipping with an extended knee would probably hurt the hamstring.

So I put my cleats on for traction and but the mat was not dirt. It was not turf. It was like a hard rubber. And so not ideal for batting. And so I was a little hesitant on that. But when I actually hit in the grass, we did some wiffle balls. I felt way better. Pulling the ball felt way better than hitting oppos. And I think it's because my I have to see on a video, but I got a feeling that I'm putting a little bit of body weight, a little bit more so off of the front leg. But you're as people who analyze swings, your swing should be the same no matter what. So I'm not a perfect hitter. So I would imagine I was doing something slightly differently with my front leg, which is the injured one.

I was able to throw fine. I found myself refraining from leaning into a throw. And so I would throw a little bit more off my back leg, which is not common for me. But when really not thinking about it, I was able to put full body weight onto the injured leg, which is the front leg. But I was able to throw all the way from the person I was warming up with because he was at the foul line. I went all the way to second base. That was fine. And I went double that distance. I was perfectly fine, too. So generally throwing you could do. And I plan on doing because some of you may listen to me and be thinking, why would you go to the game at all if you weren't able to do everything?

Well, it's because I want to keep everything else in working order and conditioned so when I do come back that there's not injuries of other types just from disuse and spikes of exposure. I did not play the game. I told the coach that do not write me in the lineup. I know I'm here dressed up and everything, but I'm not going to play. But I was really thinking that if we got up by a lot of runs, which we did, we ended up mercying them in seven innings, that I was going to ask for just a single at bat. And if I was up, if we were up a lot, then I wouldn't feel so obligated to run. I mean, I could, I could jog and I have some videos of me jogging and doing shuffles on our YouTube channel, which I will post in those same videos that you're going to watch.

But you can see that it's like, it's, it's like a shadow of, of sprinting. It's not the same. So it's faster than walking, but it's, it's definitely, I'd have to have a legit hit to get on to first base. And I would ask for, we can do this league, we can do pinch runners or designated runners. So unfortunately we didn't get to that point. We mercy them in seven innings, but it was also a mercy when we were still at the top of the lineup. So I would, I would have been added to the bottom of the lineup and we'd have to gone through about six, seven more guys before we actually got to that point.

So it never really came to fruition. I probably would have asked, but probably it's probably smarter just to leave it how it is. I didn't play a single inning. I didn't do a single at bat, but every inning I warmed up one of the outfielders between innings. I did side shuffles and kind of like half-ass jogs up and down the foul line and just rooted on the team. I was a first base coach for an inning and that was great. And I was actually surprised how, how fun it was to actually just watch your team play. I've thought over the years, and this is, maybe this is just me because I've played, I play pretty much every inning of a game that I'm in.

Like I've never been on a team. Actually, I've been on one team. I've been on a tournament team where it was very limited at bats, but I played a lot of innings. And I remember this one game where I played, we warmed up, everyone warmed up for about an hour. And then I didn't even get into the game. We had so many players. I didn't get into the sixth inning. It was hard to stay warm. Like you basically had to warm up again. And so it was, at that point, I think it was kind of frustrating to get yourself physically and mentally prepared again. In this scenario, since I know everyone on the team and I'm rooting for the team, it was actually kind of fun.

And so I bring this up because physically I couldn't be there, but, or physically like playing, I couldn't be there, but physically I could be there. And I can also be there for support for the team. If you guys have played in a group sport before, you'll probably realize that some of the players that get injured never come back. Like if they're not able to play that week or that following week or the following month, they just don't show up. I, I really didn't want to do that. I'm not going to say I won't not go to a game here because it may be a good opportunity for me to do other things that would help my physical health, but also like help mental health, I can help my mother, my father with something.

I can go on a trip with my wife. And so there's, there's things that I can definitely do in that time, but I part of like playing a group sport. And this is probably why you guys, if you've been dealing with something like this, it's like physically, it's frustrating. Like you, uh, as I mentioned in the other podcasts, like I feel frustrated or disappointed that this happened again, but it's, it's not, it's, it's more of like mental hurt and disappointment versus like, Hey, my leg hurts. Like my leg doesn't hurt all right now as I'm driving, but it's more of disappointment that I can't be part of that team.

And so you can be part of the team. If you just show up to the games, uh, it's what we call in our, when we start working with people with our telehealth and person, uh, by the way, if you guys want help, we do telehealth in different States too, like Texas, North Carolina, New York, and so on. So there's ones where we do have licensing in. So if you're having problems, reach out to us, we do very affordable consultations. Uh, part of what we talk to people about is that like physically, what are you able to do? But also like, if you don't show up and go back into the field and do kind of half-assed stuff like I did, like, what do you lose?

Well, you lose your social circle, social circle. And for the aging athlete, one of the hardest things to do is to keep that social circle. And as you get injured. And I know plenty of people that their social circle is just drinking and bad habits. The great thing about team sports is, yeah, a lot of times people go out for like beers and like bad food after the game, but like overall, at least it would baseball, you're spending like four hours of good habits with people that you wouldn't have met if you weren't actually part of that team. So making sure that you're part of a social circle physically is really important.

And I don't want to lose that. And I think that you guys shouldn't either. And we do, when we do our consultations, we talk about this, about like, you know, what's the goal and also being able to like, what can you do recently? Right now. Like, it's not fun to go to a game and not really play as, I mean, I'd rather have played yesterday, but I know I'm coming back. Right. And so you can go in the, you can go in the cage and hit, you can do shuffles down the sideline. You can help other players get a little better, give them some feedback. You can support them. Yesterday, actually, I was like, I'm usually like we're in the field.

I'm in the outfield. So I like to talk to the outfielders. But when you're in the dugout, a lot of, I mean, you get time to talk to people, but you also like a lot of times you're getting ready to hit too. So I actually talked to some of the guys more yesterday than I have in a lot of the prior seasons. So it was kind of nice to get to know everybody a little bit better anyways. So if you guys are looking for help for your hamstring, reach out to us, 714-502-4243 or email us info at p2sportscare.com. I do plan on doing a handful more of these hamstring ones as they start to recover a little bit more.

So my expected timeframe that I think I'll come back is probably three to four weeks reasonably. But that's not to say I won't do things like take an at bat here and there, or when we're up in the game, I'll say, you know what, you mind if I just half-ass jog around the outfield, but also catch some balls too? Like there's, as long as my range is not limited, I will dramatically, I probably will go out there and just tell them, look, I'm going to, I'm going to act like I'm 20 years older. Is that okay with you guys? You know? So, but I think reasonably about four weeks or so for a reasonable return, you know, running out my own bases, but also not being super aggressive.

I think last time it was about, it was about six, seven weeks or so, if I recall, to feel like I wasn't thinking about it anymore. One of my interns has a great saying that he said, he said it for backs anyways, but it'll work well for hamstrings is the best, the hamstring that everybody wants is the ones they don't think about. And so I'm thinking about it a lot right now and you guys may as well. And I know for the first six weeks, even though I was playing, I was thinking about it a lot and that's, that's not a good hamstring to see and make sure that you get to the point where you don't think about it anymore, but you're able to do everything that you want to do.

All right, guys, I hope you enjoyed this show and you got some motivation from it to get back into the game and at least go support your team. We'll see you guys next time.