Hamstring and Posterior Chain Recovery
By Dr. Paul Kochoa
Our second recovery video focuses on the hamstring muscle. This muscle starts on your pelvis (your sit bones) and extends down the leg to behind the knee. It helps to bend your knee and move your hip backwards. In the video, I use two methods to mobilize the hamstring: one with a foam roll and the other with a lacrosse ball.
Remember to move slowly, and focus on your breathing. Inhale and exhale through your nose, exhaling for 4 seconds. This will help relax the muscles and allow for the tissue to loosen up and be more pliable.
Since the hamstrings are 3 muscles on the back of your leg, work on side to side rolling also as shown in the video. This will help create shearing in the muscle fibers and help get rid of any stiffness or stickiness in between the fibers.
With the lacrosse ball, work on pinning down a trigger point or tight spot on your hamstring and then straighten and bend your knee. When you straighten your leg, pull your toes towards you. That should increase the effectiveness of the stretch down the back of your leg.
Foam rolling and self soft tissue mobilization should be an integral part of your mobility and stretching routine. It prepares the tissue to be stretched and helps to get rid of metabolic waste products in the muscle like lactic acid, reducing your soreness after workouts.
It can also prepare your body for activity as part of your warm-up routine. The key difference between doing rolling for muscle activation or muscle relaxation is the time. Anything less than 1 minute helps to activate the muscle, fire up the nervous system, and warm up the area. Rolling for 2 minutes is the key to relax a muscle by tapping into your parasympathetic nervous system and reduce the tone of the muscle.
Accompanying video: Hamstring Soft Tissue Mobilization https://youtu.be/2c1fds-q54U
Dr. Paul Kochoa is an orthopedic doctor of physical therapy in Randolph, NJ and can be reached at paul@par5pt.com