Stop Stretching Your Hamstrings! Part 1
Sometimes you have to love the internet for the information it gives people, making them an expert on all things. It kind of goes like this, if this one thing I found on google works for me then it must work the exact same for someone else. This couldn’t be further from the truth. After years of training athletes I am still amazed at what other people even those in Sports Medicine recommend or think is best for certain athletes. One topic that I actually get fired up about is the concept that constantly stretching your hamstrings will make them feel better.
I run into this consistently because a majority of the athletes I train are soccer players. The number one injury in the game of soccer is some type of hamstring injury which makes up about 12-16 percent of all soccer related injuries (Mendiguchia et al., 2020). Hamstring injuries are also common in a broad spectrum of sports, for example in 2016 the MLB reported 1 hamstring injury for every 30 games which was up from 2011 that reported 1 for every 39 games and in the NBA about 3.3 percent of all injuries are related to the hamstrings (Drakos et al., 2010; Okoroha et al., 2019). Besides the fact that hamstring injuries are common among sports, it is more common to have a feeling of “tightness” within them. Hamstring issues are found all around and knowing how to keep them “loose” and healthy will keep athletes playing the game they love.
We have to understand that just because there is a feeling of “tightness” within the hamstrings, does not necessarily mean they are legitimately tight and short. There is a difference from the terms tight and short. There are a couple concepts that need to be understood when addressing the hamstrings. Hamstring health depends on a number of things but I will name a few here such as, positioning and posture (anterior pelvic tilt), neural tension, eccentric strength, fatigue (especially soccer) and injury history. All these play a key role in having or keeping a healthy hamstring. These are all important to understand before you go and start bending over to stretch your hamstrings. For this article I will only go over the positioning and posture portion mainly because each one could have its own article and I also think that it’s all I need in order to convince you to stop stretching your hamstrings.
First, let's talk about what the hamstrings are all about.
In order to succeed in the world of strength and conditioning we must understand basic human anatomy as I think it is the #1 tool to do so. With saying that, let's start with the anatomy of the hamstrings. There are a total of 3 muscles that make up the hamstring muscles; semitendinosus muscle, semimembranosus muscle and the biceps femoris muscle which has 2 heads with 2 different origins. Origin and insertion points of the hamstrings are important to note because the hamstrings cross 2 main joints (hip joint and knee joint) and have important actions at each one of them (extension of the hip and flexion of the knee). The long head of the biceps femoris muscle, semitendinosus muscle and semimembranosus muscle (hamstrings) all originate along the ischial tuberosity (hip) but each muscle inserts on different aspects of the lower leg. The biceps femoris muscle inserts on the lateral aspect of the head of the fibula and the semimembranosus muscle inserts on the medial condyle of the tibia, while the semitendinosus muscle inserts on the proximal end of the tibia. All insertion points have one thing in common; they all cross the knee joint. Why is that important to know? Because this is a large factor why hamstring injuries are so prominent in sports. When hip flexion (bending forward of the trunk or knee drive) occurs and the knee extends (straightens) it lengthens the hamstrings past their optimum length and puts it in a vulnerable position. Keep all this in mind.
I don’t want to get too much into the root of hamstring injuries as my goal for this article is to simply convince athletes that maybe stretching their hamstrings isn’t the best option.
Let's talk about why stretching the hamstrings might not be the greatest idea.
Anterior Pelvic Tilt
An anterior pelvic tilt pattern can refer to the pelvis being tilted forward more than normal. This can also be referred to as an over extension pattern. Athletes fall under this category. There is nothing wrong with this, partially because this might be a reason athletes are truly explosive and fast. The problem comes to not being able to control that position (stability). So if we take into account that athletes are in an anterior pelvic tilted state, it then causes the hip flexors to become short and the anterior core and hamstrings to become long and weak. One function of the hamstrings is to posterior tilt the hips, so when the hips are constantly in an anterior pelvic tilted position this means that the hamstrings are always stretched or “turned on” giving a sensation of tightness—remember the hamstrings originate at the hip. This is a huge reason why stretching your hamstrings is a terrible idea! An athlete is already in a posture and position that makes the hamstrings long and weak and for whatever reason people think it's a good idea to try and make them longer and more unstable by stretching? Not sure that makes sense. If stretching needs to be performed it should be for the short hip flexors in the front.
Why the feeling of tightness? The feeling of tightness is mostly due to the protective mechanism that is implemented so athletes don’t end up with lower back injuries. This is very common in extension and rotation based athletes with it being even more prominent in female athletes. This protection mechanism is similar to upper traps and lats conversation. A lot of the time when someone feels tightness in their upper traps it could be because of the protection mechanism that is implemented to help find stability. Instead the focus should be on the hyperactive and dominant lats. This is a good example that instead of looking at the exact place of what you think the problem is you should look beyond that.
So if I shouldn’t stretch, what should I do?
Instead, do exercises that help reposition the pelvis. These types of exercises will help stabilize the anterior core and hips (synergists to the hamstrings) like the glutes. I like to implement exercises derived from the Postural Restoration Institute that work on internal rotation, posterior pelvic tilt and anterior core stabilization.
Here is an example of a 90/90 Hip Lift w/Breathing (Right Arm Flexed):
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the hamstrings, but it’s an important piece to understand. I plan on making follow up articles on different aspects of the hamstrings that will hopefully open more eyes. All in all, think twice before you start stretching your hamstrings and find out the main problem before you do any more harm.
References
Drakos, M. C., Domb, B., Starkey, C., Callahan, L., & Allen, A. A. (2010). Injury in the national basketball association: a 17-year overview. Sports health, 2(4), 284–290. https://doi.org/10.1177/1941738109357303
Mendiguchia, J., Conceição, F., Edouard, P., Fonseca, M., Pereira, R., Lopes, H., Morin, J. B., & Jiménez-Reyes, P. (2020). Sprint versus isolated eccentric training: Comparative effects on hamstring architecture and performance in soccer players. PloS one, 15(2), e0228283. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228283
Okoroha, K. R., Conte, S., Makhni, E. C., Lizzio, V. A., Camp, C. L., Li, B., & Ahmad, C. S. (2019). Hamstring Injury Trends in Major and Minor League Baseball: Epidemiological Findings From the Major League Baseball Health and Injury Tracking System. Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine, 7(7), 2325967119861064. https://doi.org/10.1177/2325967119861064
