Hamstring tear recovery at week four: hills, lifting and return to sport

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 everybody, it's your co-host Sebastian with the Restoring Human Movement Podcast. Thanks for joining the show with me today. I just got back from a quick run amongst some hills around my house, and I thought I would do a podcast as a recap today about my recent hamstring tear that I sustained about four weeks ago. If you've been listening along with the podcast, you realize that I've done a few episodes about this and the progression of care and exercise that I've been doing and some thoughts along the way.

Just to give you a quick recap, about four weeks ago, I was playing baseball. I had a ball hit into the gap, and so I fielded it, planted my left leg, felt a pop, and then immediately had to go to the ground. I could barely walk to the car. I mean, I could not walk to the car. Like, there was a series of steps, a lot of steps, to get up there to the car, to the parking lot, and it took me 20 minutes from the field. I mean, it was no more than probably 200 yards away. So it was quite a bit to have to go through again. I had it happen to me about like six, seven months ago, and I recovered from that.

It was on the other leg. And so I wanted to share with you today the things that I'm learning again and again. I think it'll be getting better every time. We tend to learn things about our injuries here at Performance Place. And this being week four, I went back the first week to baseball again, one week later exactly, and I just messed around. I got ground balls when they were hit. I didn't play in the game. I didn't hit in the game. I hit in the cage. That was fine. I side shuffled. I did a little bit of jog. I had some back pedaling. That was fine. I threw the ball. That was fine. So I even dove for a ball when someone was warming up with me, and they threw the ball a little bit wild.

And so I dove for it, and that was fine too. So there's a lot of things that you can do. Week two was actually a big change for me. I went to the game again, and I told them I don't want to play. But if we were up by a lot of runs, I would take an at-bat and just hobble to first base because I couldn't really open up the stride. The game didn't go that way. We ended up winning, but it was the wrong part of the lineup to be added to the bottom of the lineup. And so I was happy to be there, chew on the team, and talk with people, and also get my rehab in forcefully that Sunday as well. And even week three was the same thing.

I didn't get a single at-bat. I didn't play the field. But I told them if I needed to, I could play the field. But they made some accommodations and put people out of position. I didn't need to do that. So that was, again, that was one week, two weeks, three weeks of games. Fourth week, this was just the other day, was Easter. And now we're coming up on week five, which I do plan on doing some form of play, hopefully seven days from now. Now, this morning, I went for a run. I went yesterday, and again, there was the hills. The point of doing the hills is because if you go up a hill, it doesn't allow you to open up your stride at all.

Like, your foot gets caught on the earth before you can actually open up your stride. So you can still work on leg drive, which I've done in the prior weeks on a sled at the gym. I've also done a lot of squatting. I just recently started adding light kettlebell swings back in. I added a moderate deadlift for with a hex bar back in last week as well. And those were all fine to do. But still, yesterday when I went sprinting up the hills, I kind of felt like that one section of my hamstring was more fatigued than the remainder of the leg. The rest of the leg was actually fine. Part of my quad was burning more than anything else because it was a very steep hill.

But I felt like that hamstring was fatiguing in a small section, which I decided to call a little bit of a quits early. I hiked around about a mile prior to that in the hills, and then I ended up doing about six to seven sprints with walk back downs just to test things out because I am going to try to play next week, and I'd rather not rest the whole week. I think that's a big mistake to do. And so I went running again this morning. So this time I took a slightly different approach. There's this loop at the city park where it's a dirt loop, and there's a gradual grade or incline as it goes up on one side.

The other one's a very steep one as it comes down. So I briskly jogged up the slight incline until I did a couple loops, and then I got tired and I had to walk. Once I got back down into the incline again, or the gradual incline, I picked up the pace a little bit, and it kind of felt like, I know of a lot of people I've talked to with hamstring tears or injuries in the past, they can actually long, slow distance run. They can jog, and they can actually do quicker pace too, like adding a little bit of pep in their step as they're running as well, but they still can't sprint. So I decided to pep in the step and then do this for a longer distance this time, and I chose not to sprint today.

One of the easiest things that we can do when you're trying to improve yourself and keep yourself physically conditioned from a hamstring tear is to not really get out of the acceleration phase. So they say after about three steps, I think it's 10 yards, like a flat ground, like you are still accelerating. I find that vague because there's like a lot of hesitation of actually fully accelerating. So I think it's, I feel like it's half accelerating and then you get uprighted and then you still feel the pull. So I would prefer to use hills, honestly, because you can change environment such as the incline to make it.

So you're never really out of an acceleration phase. It's continual elevation. You're always slowing down even more. And also the overstriding doesn't happen because the earth is in the way. So another thing you can do is change pace. So I chose to change terrain. Instead of flat, I went hills. Instead of doing that sharp hill that I had yesterday, I went the gradual hill today. I walked down the sharp hill. And also I changed the pace. So you can change all these variables that are very similar to, say you are dealing with a hamstring injury and you're not tolerating a certain gym exercise. You can change the exercise.

You can change the implement, which is instead of barbell, you change to a hex bar or kettlebell or dumbbell or so on. You can also change the pace, which is time under tension. And you can also change the weight. So there's a lot of ways to change variables. And I think this is overlooked. Oftentimes people focus on the things they can't do versus the ways to accomplish the same thing with different variables change. So if your goal is to go to the gym and feel like you're physically active because you're depressed because you can't do anything, does it need to be that one lift with that one speed, with that one weight?

It can change. So, and I don't want to say working around this is like working around it. The, this is actually just changing the stimulus and changing the load, changing the pulsing that you're getting through that certain tissue. So what I'm learning this week with my hamstring is that it's not fully recovered and it's going to take some more time, but I feel like I'm able to do things to a competent level. I don't feel like I'm putting myself in danger. And with, if I do decide to go into the game, which I probably will request it, I will actually probably tell them I would choose not to be in the game when the game is on the line.

Such as if a ball, even if you're jogging for a ball because you want to make sure not to sprint in the balls slightly out of reach, you'll still lean at it, which is still, you'll still do some overstriding. So it's not about necessarily the decreasing range that you're able to cover in the field. It's more about the urgency. And I, and I experienced this last time when I recovered from the other hamstring tear was I went back in the game after about a month and I chose not to steal any bases. I chose not to take extra bases, but there was a moment where I was the, if you guys watch baseball, there's bases loaded.

So you, and there's one out, so you have to run. And so somebody hit this little chopper. And so I had to go home. And so I ended up sliding in and that actually jolted me quite a bit. But if it was a single, I could just saunter into home, home base. So I think the situational stuff is something I'm going to try to avoid just for the next couple of weeks, probably this week plan though, I am going to see if I can add in a little bit more kettlebell swings again, that exposes the hamstring to a little bit of pulsing. If you guys have not already, there is a YouTube series that I put on as well that covers the first four weeks of what I've done for this hamstring tear.

And also too, if you guys want any suggestions directly, we are licensed in different states and we can see you with telehealth as well. We can help you walk you through this thing too. All of our contact is in the description for this podcast player. But I think hamstring injuries, they really are temperamental. If you look at it as all the things you can't do, like you really have to be in a good mental place to be able to recover from an injury like this. Unfortunately, a lot of people aren't. Last time in October, I believe it was October. I was not in a good place with it. I was very frustrated and luckily the season was over.

There was no pressure, but I was pretty frustrated. This time around, I feel much more in control and I feel mentally stable with it. I have a plan of attack. And again, transparency, last time I intended on recording a series of videos for you guys for a four-week recovery plan. They're completely free on YouTube, which is in the description for the video or the podcast. But I didn't feel like it. You know, there's a lot of things that people aren't really wanting to do because they don't feel mentally in the right space for it. This time I feel quite a bit better and I'm going to, I've already released those for you guys.

So I hope this was helpful. And if you guys are looking for help again for this, please reach out to us. We really love helping people in need and guiding them to the right solution. There's no need. You guys should be thinking of, hey, I'm too old to play sports again. Like everybody can get back to a sport, whether it's going to be in a limited fashion within a short period of time, like I am, or if they do all of their hard work, they can still perform at an acceptable level. I don't expect, I'm at 42. I don't expect to perform how I did when I was 20, but I also don't expect to play as if I'm 70.

Like there's an expectation that you should have for yourself with the time that you have available during the week to actually do training and preparedness for your sport on the weekend or the weeknight and also expectations for what you feel is acceptable for your, not just physical preparedness, but also your skill. Like, do you spend time in the batting cages? Are you disappointed in your marathon time, but you haven't really trained? Like those are expectations that we all need to manage because we do all have busy lives and that having the right physical and mental preparedness will keep you out of trouble and keep you actually happy in your sport.

So reach out to us, 714-502-4243. We also have online programs that can help you that are in the description as well. Take care.