Andrew Newberry a Sports Therapist and member of the Society of Sports Therapists and of The British Association of Sports & Exercise Scientist reports:
As we come into the meat of season players will be starting to see the fruits of the labour from the preseason and on-going fitness programs with their clubs and with their own workouts. A well planned and constructed conditioning program provides a good foundation by giving you that edge over your opposite number and reducing your risk of injury. The way the game has developed and is continuing to develop increases injury risk so it is important that you reduce your risk of injury through correct conditioning programs. This will assist in keeping you playing.
An injury I see quite regularly in players is a hamstring tear. All of us know someone who has experienced this injury or have had the misfortune of experiencing it ourselves. While there are many contributing factors to hamstring injuries this article is going to focus on strength deficits and training programs. I have heard many coaches and commentators talk about leg drive and powerful quadriceps but it is also important that when training we do not forget about our hamstrings and focus solely on the quads. Too often I have seen coaches and players implement training programs rich in quadriceps strengthening exercises but poor hamstring content! It is important to remember muscle groups do not work in isolation but in groups called antagonistic pairs were one muscle performs the opposite movement to the other. For example: bicep flexes the elbow while your triceps extends the elbow joint. Both groups of muscle need to be trained adequately to prevent injury. A great deal of hamstring injuries occur due to inadequate hamstring strengthening. This has important implications when sprinting as one of the roles of hamstrings act to slow the lower leg as it follows through before being planted onto the ground. If your quads are much stronger than your hamstrings they effectively whip your lower leg through at a speed to great for your hamstrings to control. This then overloads your hamstring causing them to tear.
There are three grades of hamstring tears:
• Grade 1 slight tear to some of muscle fibres.
• Grade 2 a majority but not all of the fibres are torn.
• Grade 3 complete rupture all fibres are torn.
By the stage your hamstring is torn it’s late the damage is done and you will have to begin a reactive rehabilitation program which will vary in duration depending on which grade of injury you have sustained. Nevertheless you will miss matches and training sessions and as with any injury once it has occurred it is more likely to happen again. This is no more evident than with hamstring injuries most people will be familiar with Leinster and Ireland centre Brian O’Driscoll has been plagued with hamstring injuries through his career and more recently Ulster Rugby’s Darren Cave has missed matches with a hamstring injury this is because hamstring injuries can take 18 months to be fully healed!
It is not particle for these professional or amateur players not to play for so long and recover especially when they are able to play and play to a high level during a portion of these 18 months. However the weakness in that muscle still exists and during the 18 months post injury and during this time you are most likely to reinjure that muscle which will cause further absence from the team while a rehabilitation program is followed and so begins what can be a viscous cycle of hamstring injuries.
So what type of exercises can be performed to strengthen your hamstrings and what the optimal level of strength? To answer the latter question first while there is an optimal ratio of strength between your quadriceps and hamstrings unless you have the necessary equipment to measure the strength in your quadriceps and hamstrings which few amateur clubs would it is not important to know.
There are many exercises that target your hamstring some are more effective than others. Rugby is a dynamic game that requires levels of strength from your entire body in order to impose you strength effectively and your dominance on the pitch. For this reason I am a great believer in functional training in an effort to get the most from your training session. To be effective on the rugby pitch you need to be on your feet. Being on your back or backside rules you out of the game so why train sitting down on a resistance machine or lying on your back? While these machines and different exercises have their place when you train you should be aiming to keep your training as close to the principles of your sport so if you need to be on your feet train on your feet.
By sitting on a resistance machine performing leg curls you deactivate your core and other stabilising muscles. Your body is chain all connected for example to exert the strength of your legs in a tackle you need to be able to stabilise them to direct your strength and force in the direction you want and a strong core to be transfer the force of your leg drive into the tackle and drive the opposition back or at the very least you stop them crossing the gain line. There are some very good hamstring strengthening exercises that can be performed on a Swiss Ball but again they are not functional to the sport and I believe they have a much greater role and benefit within rehabilitation than prehabilitation setting.
A fantastic functional exercise for strengthening hamstrings is stiff leg dead lifts or “good mornings” in this exercise you perform a dead lift while maintaining a straight back and legs push your hips back and bending from the pelvis while keeping the bar close to your legs and your shoulder blades close together like you are trying to a squeeze a fifty pence piece between them. See the videos below for examples of these lifts pay close attention to the movement of the hips, the straight legs and back and how close the bar remains to the legs.
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This exercise places emphasis of what is called “eccentric loading” of the hamstrings by slowly lowering the bar. This is particularly important as the time when a muscle is most likely to tear is when it is being eccentrically loaded. However this exercises also activates muscles in your core and upper back so you get a benefit of multiple muscle groups working as the same time.
If you have never performed this type of exercise before you should seek the help of a trained professional who can instruct you and assess your technique in an effort to prevent injury this is an exercise designed to reduce your risk on injury not increase it. As with all exercise programs an exercise performed incorrectly is not only of little benefit, it’s dangerous! If you are unsure ask a member of you local gym staff for help and only perform this sort of exercise under the instruction of a person who is adequately qualified.
If you have suffered an injury to your hamstrings contact Sports Rehab Ireland who have trained staff that specialise in the assessment and rehabilitation of sports injuries.
Sports Rehab Ireland
Fitness First Connswater
Belfast
BT5 4AF
02890452166
Click Here www.sportsrehabilitationireland.co.uk
