Hamstring treatment Adelaide

Hamstring Treatment Adelaide

Hamstring Tendinopathy

What is Hamstring Tendinopathy?

Hamstring Tendinopathy is a degenerative change that occurs at the attachment of the hamstring muscle at the base of your sitting bone in your pelvis. This is often the place that gets injured when you strain or pull the top portion of your Hamstring. The injury is termed as a tendinopathy rather than a tendonitis due to the degenerative causes rather than an inflammation in the Hamstring tendon or its attachment to the ischial tuberosity or lower buttock.

If you have a Hamstring tendinopathy your pain will be very local over your bony lower buttock area when walking or running. This might be worse when increasing your running speed and during longer faster runs. Your pain will probably be quite intense and aching rather than a sharp or stabbing pain. Due to the closeness of your hamstring attachment site to your sciatic nerve, your sciatic nerve can occasionally become irritated and refer pain into the back of your Hamstring or thigh. Once it is aggravated, sitting on hard chairs or surfaces can create a lot of discomfort. Pressing directly onto the ischial tuberosity bone with your hand can also be very painful.

Other musculoskeletal issues such as piriformis syndrome, pelvic stress fractures and low back injuries can also create similar pains and therefore getting an assessment from your City Physiotherapy can help distinguish where your pain is coming from.

Hamstring Treatment Adelaide – Tendinopathy Treatment

Research shows that stretching can aggravate this issue and soft tissue techniques by themselves won’t fix your symptoms. Gradual loading via a specific rehab exercise will assist this painful condition.

Hamstring Tendon Load Management

The tendon will be aggravated by compressive and tensile loading forces. These loads need to be monitored to stop aggravation of pain and to facilitate healing and strengthening of your Hamstring tendon. With the hamstring tendon, compression occurs during sitting and activities that cause hip and spinal flexion, such as running and sitting. Therefore, sitting and running will create compression loading. It is vital to recovery to minimise time in these positions

Stretching needs to be limited and running limited to an acceptable pain level. Light jogging may not aggravate the issue depending on the individual presentation.

Strengthening your Hamstring

Hamstring Tendinopathy will lead to weakness in your hamstrings so it is vital to start strengthening exercises prescribed by your Physiotherapist.

In the initial stages gentle strengthening exercises will help with your pain and then our Physiotherapists will progress your exercises to become more functional and activity related.

Gluteal & Core Control in Hamstring Tendinopathy

Our Physiotherapists will assess your movement and strength in your core muscles, lower back pelvis and hips to determine if are they are a contributing factor in your symptoms. Poor gluteal recruitment and endurance can unnecessarily place extra load on your hamstring tendon which leads to Hamstring tendinopathy developing.

Soft Tissue Treatment & Dry Needling for Hamstring Tendinopathy

Hamstring Treatment Adelaide. Hands on Physiotherapy and Dry Needling to help your pain and any soft tissue changes in your hamstring can also be part of your treatment.

Patients with ongoing hamstring pain that does not resolve in 4-8 weeks probably have other factors such as lumbar spine and sciatic nerve involvement that also need to be addressed.

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