Hamstring flexibility

Mine is bad. Pathetically bad. I used to not care, justifying it by telling myself "tight muscles are fast muscles." Maybe true, but my PT believes that my overly tight hamstrings were a contributing factor to my injury.

How do I improve? My PT gave me a few stretches, but they don't seem to be working. I haven't noticed much, if any, improvement. Please don't say yoga.

Legs up the wall.

Lay on your back. Butt against the wall and legs straight up against the wall. Great for recovery and hamstring flexibility. I tell myself to do every night but rarely ever do the stretch - but it does work!

Touch your toes?
Standing, cross one foot over the other (the front leg will keep the back leg locked straight). That'll isolate one at a time. Alternate which hand reaches. Or go for both.

Those two helped me go from "I can't get within 6 inches of my toes with both hands" to "I can wrap my fingers around my heels" in 4 months.

YOGA!

In all seriousness, you should give it a shot. It's actually a whole lot more strength based than I expected it to be. I think it helped keep my hip thing at bay for a while until I started totally slacking and not going as much.

Plus, if you go with Britt, there could be some ancillary benefits!

Don't be stubborn, Dave. You know the right thing to do.

mul21 wrote:YOGA!

In all seriousness, you should give it a shot. It's actually a whole lot more strength based than I expected it to be. I think it helped keep my hip thing at bay for a while until I started totally slacking and not going as much.

Plus, if you go with Britt, there could be some ancillary benefits!

You know Dave I have to agree with Jim on this one. Since we started do Yoga I have felt a lot better. Like you there is no doubt that the niggles I ran into this last training cycle were from not stretching.

Other then the yoga, I'm now stretching a lot more a day and using the foam roller. I also found from my PT guy that if or when you ITB starts to get tight that it will started to tighten up other muscles like the hamstrings, quads and butt muscles. So I make sure I'm doing a lot more rolling and using the stick on the ITB and other muscle groups.

For my hammies stretches I have doing the straight legs touch toes, put one leg up on a box and then bending down, sitting on the floor straight leg bend over, legs apart and then bending to both toes and then to the middle.

Dave-O wrote:Mine is bad. Pathetically bad. I used to not care, justifying it by telling myself "tight muscles are fast muscles." Maybe true, but my PT believes that my overly tight hamstrings were a contributing factor to my injury.

How do I improve? My PT gave me a few stretches, but they don't seem to be working. I haven't noticed much, if any, improvement. Please don't say yoga.

Say it ain't so! I stopped stretching a few years ago because you never did. My hamstrings are very tight, it's embarrassing to get tested on flexibility. But I don't go the speeds you do so it probably means more - but don't most elites do dynamic stretching, not static?

JohnP wrote:

Dave-O wrote:Mine is bad. Pathetically bad. I used to not care, justifying it by telling myself "tight muscles are fast muscles." Maybe true, but my PT believes that my overly tight hamstrings were a contributing factor to my injury.

How do I improve? My PT gave me a few stretches, but they don't seem to be working. I haven't noticed much, if any, improvement. Please don't say yoga.

Say it ain't so! I stopped stretching a few years ago because you never did. My hamstrings are very tight, it's embarrassing to get tested on flexibility. But I don't go the speeds you do so it probably means more - but don't most elites do dynamic stretching, not static?

John from what I read and talking with my PT and my preference I like to have a good balance of both static and dynamic stretching. As for the Elites I think it is a mixed back on how they approach stretching.

JohnP wrote:

Say it ain't so! I stopped stretching a few years ago because you never did. My hamstrings are very tight, it's embarrassing to get tested on flexibility. But I don't go the speeds you do so it probably means more - but don't most elites do dynamic stretching, not static?

I still don't believe distance runners need to be flexible, but I do think there's a necessary minimum level of flexibility needed. And I may have crossed the bad side of that threshold .

Ugh, I'll consider yoga.

Dave-O wrote: Ugh, I'll consider yoga.

Let me know the first time you go do this because I'm sure this will be a site to see!

Y O G A. I need to get back to it too.

Schuey wrote:

Dave-O wrote: Ugh, I'll consider yoga.

Let me know the first time you go do this because I'm sure this will be a site to see!

+1

Dave-O wrote:

JohnP wrote:

Say it ain't so! I stopped stretching a few years ago because you never did. My hamstrings are very tight, it's embarrassing to get tested on flexibility. But I don't go the speeds you do so it probably means more - but don't most elites do dynamic stretching, not static?

I still don't believe distance runners need to be flexible, but I do think there's a necessary minimum level of flexibility needed. And I may have crossed the bad side of that threshold .

Ugh, I'll consider yoga.

Yoga is good for some other things too

Just sayin'

ChasMcG wrote:

Dave-O wrote:

JohnP wrote:

Say it ain't so! I stopped stretching a few years ago because you never did. My hamstrings are very tight, it's embarrassing to get tested on flexibility. But I don't go the speeds you do so it probably means more - but don't most elites do dynamic stretching, not static?

I still don't believe distance runners need to be flexible, but I do think there's a necessary minimum level of flexibility needed. And I may have crossed the bad side of that threshold .

Ugh, I'll consider yoga.

Yoga is good for some other things too

Just sayin'

Oh boy chas is back

ChasMcG wrote:

Dave-O wrote:

JohnP wrote:

Say it ain't so! I stopped stretching a few years ago because you never did. My hamstrings are very tight, it's embarrassing to get tested on flexibility. But I don't go the speeds you do so it probably means more - but don't most elites do dynamic stretching, not static?

I still don't believe distance runners need to be flexible, but I do think there's a necessary minimum level of flexibility needed. And I may have crossed the bad side of that threshold .

Ugh, I'll consider yoga.

Yoga is good for some other things too

Just sayin'

And THAT is why I love you!

Whenever I'm feeling extra tight, I just lay on my back, get a towel around my foot and pull it back (similar to the wall thing that someone else mentioned). My leg usually shakes and goes into spasms, but it does stretch the hell out of it.

GregC wrote:Whenever I'm feeling extra tight, I just lay on my back, get a towel around my foot and pull it back (similar to the wall thing that someone else mentioned). My leg usually shakes and goes into spasms, but it does stretch the hell out of it.

This is what the PT has told me to do after every run. It hurts and I dread it. But alas, I need to keep working on it.

We use the foam roller a lot on the hamstring muscles. The other thing our podiatrist/sports doctor told us to do was us a super ball to release trigger points. She gave us one she got from a party supply store and it's about 3 inches in diameter (maybe 4). She told us if we use it to release tightness in our hamstrings, we need to place it on the floor and move it around on the muscle as we sit on it. It works well for hitting tight IT bands too. You place the ball on the wall and lean the outside of your hip into it and apply pressure.

Dave-O wrote:

GregC wrote:Whenever I'm feeling extra tight, I just lay on my back, get a towel around my foot and pull it back (similar to the wall thing that someone else mentioned). My leg usually shakes and goes into spasms, but it does stretch the hell out of it.

This is what the PT has told me to do after every run. It hurts and I dread it. But alas, I need to keep working on it.

Legs up the wall - same result - less effort on your part. Just run you legs up a wall for 10 to 20 minutes and relax by watching TV or have your wife feed you grapes!

charles wrote:

Legs up the wall - same result - less effort on your part. Just run you legs up a wall for 10 to 20 minutes and relax by watching TV or have your wife feed you grapes!

The problem with the legs on the wall is that I can't get to a 90 degree angle. Pathetic, I know...

charles wrote:

Dave-O wrote:

GregC wrote:Whenever I'm feeling extra tight, I just lay on my back, get a towel around my foot and pull it back (similar to the wall thing that someone else mentioned). My leg usually shakes and goes into spasms, but it does stretch the hell out of it.

This is what the PT has told me to do after every run. It hurts and I dread it. But alas, I need to keep working on it.

Legs up the wall - same result - less effort on your part. Just run you legs up a wall for 10 to 20 minutes and relax by watching TV or have your wife feed you grapes!

Let me guess....waving you with palm branches?

Dave-O wrote:

charles wrote:

Legs up the wall - same result - less effort on your part. Just run you legs up a wall for 10 to 20 minutes and relax by watching TV or have your wife feed you grapes!

The problem with the legs on the wall is that I can't get to a 90 degree angle. Pathetic, I know...

Assuming your wife is feeding you grapes . . . (1) move your butt back further away from the wall and work toward 90 degrees and/or (2) put a couple of pillows or folded blankets under your butt. Putting pillows under you will take a lot of the pressure/strain/pull off the hamstring where it meets the glute and allow you to work more of the meat of the hamstring muscles.

Mrs. Schuey wrote:....waving you with palm branches?

Yeah . . . this too

Dave-O wrote:

charles wrote:

Legs up the wall - same result - less effort on your part. Just run you legs up a wall for 10 to 20 minutes and relax by watching TV or have your wife feed you grapes!

The problem with the legs on the wall is that I can't get to a 90 degree angle. Pathetic, I know...

You could also try Youtube to find more dynamic stretches.

The simplest way to help you stretch the hammie would involve some help from da spouse. Have her hold your leg at 60-70 degrees (or whatever you can reach on your own) to provide resistance while you give 60-70% of your extension strength. Hold for 5-6 seconds and then relax. Meanwhile, she pushes your leg even higher stretching your hamstring(not to any pain level). Repeat until you get to 90 degrees.


This "contract-relax" stuff works great when you have a stiff neck, too. The technical name is "reciprocal disinhibition."

Yeah, yeah, there are lots of jokes in what I just said. Let's hope nobody goes there.

Dang, that is inflexible!

Are there any yoga classes especially for runners? We have those here.

I'll stretch in front of the TV, too, even without the grapes. It takes patience. Sometimes if you contract your quads then relax them while doing a hamstring stretch, that causes your body to relax into the stretch further.