Torn Hamstring Recovery time

[kidwoo]

A search on this comes up with all "torn" acl and "hamstring graft" so let's begin anew.

I went over the bars biking yesterday and pulled in the one range that clipless pedals don't release. It was enough to yank the bike over my head and the muscle is definitely torn. I've had muscle tears before but nothing this big (or vital). Usually I pamper it for a few days and then start the stretching and light use.

Anything I need to be aware of or do to make this as short as possible?
Thanks

[upallnight]

Hey, kidwoo...I feel for ya.

I did a quick search and found this info on hamstring tears:
Bodyworks

eOrthopod

Hope you heal quick.

[Conundrum]

Don't get after anything too soon, you will only agitate it. Lots of fluids. I tore mine in the summer. About 3-4 weeks I felt 100% and went riding-it wasn't ready. Another couple weeks though and I was good. It would get a little sore but that was my warning to lay off a bit. These can be those nagging injuries if you don't give it time. Look forward to some sweet bruising.

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...ghlight=bruise

[kidwoo]

Don't get after anything too soon, you will only agitate it. Lots of fluids. I tore mine in the summer. About 3-4 weeks I felt 100% and went riding-it wasn't ready. Another couple weeks though and I was good. It would get a little sore but that was my warning to lay off a bit. These can be those nagging injuries if you don't give it time. Look forward to some sweet bruising.

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...ghlight=bruise

Heh....hopefully I'll get some cool colors out of it. You said pulled....I'm pretty sure this is torn. It's got that nice sharp sting whenever I try to engage the muscle. Pulled is probably in the equation as well though. I've got some funkiness from right behind the knee all the way up through my booticus maximus. I feels like I've got half a watermelon taped to the back of my femur.

Thanks for the links UAN. Type in the title of this thread into google and you get things as trite as theoretical fantasy football player injuries. Pathetic.

4 weeks....hmmm

[Conundrum]

I was drunk when mine happened so it didn't hurt to bad at the time. I did get the sting but I really don't know if it was pulled or torn. I could walk but knee flexion didn't work so well. I didn't get it diagnosed by a doc...just knew I was out for a bit. Either way, good luck with it. Yours does sound more severe than mine though.

[upallnight]

4 weeks....hmmm

so sorry you had to cut your trip short. i hope that your recovery is faster than that...

[Viva]

Suffered a torn calf (not completely through) muscle at the Utah mini a couple of years ago. Major blood pooling in the foot and all that good shit.

I scheduled an appointment with my massage therapist immediately. Got about 10-15 minutes of very light work the first session, then more like 25-30 minutes 2 days later. Had one more short (25-30 minutes) session before he left out of town. Thereafter, I just did light stretching and felt good enough to run or ski 2 weeks after the injury. Just to be safe, I took an additional week off.

So, for me, it was 3 weeks.

Advise: hydration, light stretching, movement without exertion.

Good luck!

[Meathelmet]

Eww, sorry about the shit mang..

Some athletes that i know use a some ultrasound stuff on the tears, on top of massage,light strech and diet (water,something that speeds up your metabolism,but not crystal meth..).
Supposedly can speed up the recovery time for muscle tears 2 or 3 times.
Supposedly.

The ultra thing is something remotely resembling the ultras that they use for checking out babies. You do 1-2 times daily for couple of weeks.
Obviously you need some sports rehab facility with the equipment,and some money/insurance/connections for that.




For the money you can sell some bike parts or your poontang.

Eh,never mind.

[Vinman]

treatement of muscle strains is as follows.

days 1-5 ICE compress and try not to irritate it too much

after 5 days you can move to moist heat ( hot tub, moist heat pack, warm bath.

only begin stretching when it begins to feel like you can come close to taking a full stride without having pain.

After that begin some GENTLE stretching. do not overstretch a hammy tear or you'll be asking for trouble.

you could proabably do some light biking, flat pedals only (no pulling up on the backstroke of the pedal rev)

at around 2.5 -3 wks you might be able to start some light strengthening of the muscle.

full recovery around 4-6 wks. depending on the extent of the tear. Mild strains would only last about 1-2 wks, moderate 2-3 wks, severe 3+

[TWINS]

What Vinman said.I tore my Abductor while rehabbing my calf injury 3 weeks ago.My P.T. had me doing lunges and the leg was just to week to take it.He immediately went to ultrasound while icing it.Then it was a compression bandage and ice for 20 minutes every hour with elevation even while sleeping.Ultrasound the following 2 days after and no movement that will use the muscle.You need to attack this thing like it is the end of the world.Otherwise your recovery will take a lot longer.I`m moving fine now but still have to watch how I activate the torn area.

[Theodore]

I would think it all depends on the location of the tear. No amount of rest was going to make my hammy magicallygrow 8 inches back down my thigh and re-attach... A doc wouldn't be bad for a diagnosis at least.

[kidwoo]

Wow.

thanks for the input guys.

Non active recovery has never been an option for any injury I've had. I watched my left leg turn into a toothpic when I was 14 from sitting immobile in a cast for 4 months. Every time since I've always pushed muscle/tendon use as long as I knew everything was in place.

I just got back from whistler tonight and I'll be on the phone tomorrow to see what insurance says bout PT coverage. Ultra sound sounds intriguing. I know I don't want a balled up scar tissued mess on a muscle I do use quite a bit.

The hamstring network still has something left. I can lay down on my stomach and do little curls so at least there's something still attached. So it's not as bad as yours theodore. Just out of curiosity, what kind of time passed before you were using it for anything worth a damn?

I do a lot of xc mountain biking so getting the muscle back shouldn't be a problem......just a matter of when I can start tugging on it.

My best friend is typically a heating pad once swelling goes down with most of my boo boos.

Thanks again for the responses.

[Theodore]

Just out of curiosity, what kind of time passed before you were using it for anything worth a damn?

I also did my ACL, LCL, and PCL, so take this with a grain of salt. I was injured on Dec. 5th '01. First surgery on Dec. 26th, 2nd in late March, off crutches in late April and jogging in PT in August or so. 3rd surgery in November, PT through that Jan. or so and I was back to "normal". I had major ROM issues though.

[kidwoo]

I also did my ACL, LCL, and PCL, so take this with a grain of salt. I was injured on Dec. 5th '01. First surgery on Dec. 26th, 2nd in late March, off crutches in late April and jogging in PT in August or so. 3rd surgery in November, PT through that Jan. or so and I was back to "normal". I had major ROM issues though.

I have to ask.....

How the fuck did you do that?

And also......got any video?

[Theodore]

I have to ask.....

How the fuck did you do that?

And also......got any video?

I wish I had video! I'd laugh at myself rolling around on the ground. I was playing football with some friends. Had the ball, saw someone coming from the left so I cut to the right and hyperextended my left knee. Right as the hyperextension was at its worst I was hit from behind and my knee broke back and out and let out a hell of snap. I was swearing before I hit the ground and learned quickly that you can't walk those off.

[kidwoo]

You win.........

[Theodore]

You win.........

It was an experience. I made a lot of good friends throught therapy though, and had a few girls take pity on me... For honesty's sake the PCL didn't tear all the way through, it was still holding on by a sliver.

[chaka]

Sorry to hear about your injury, KidWoo. That sucks balls.

Always looking for a silver lining... does this mean you will have some time to refresh your signature blog? I spit a mouthful of raisin bran on my keyboard last week reading that... looking forward to some updates

[kidwoo]

Sorry to hear about your injury, KidWoo. That sucks balls.

Always looking for a silver lining... does this mean you will have some time to refresh your signature blog? I spit a mouthful of raisin bran on my keyboard last week reading that... looking forward to some updates

I can't take credit for that. That's just a random web find I discovered shortly after a bunch of discussion of horses on trails in the sprocket rockets board. I thought it was pretty damn funny too.

[GBB]

I tore/separated my hammy from the growth plate playing football my freshman year. I iced it and heated it everyday; after heating it I would strech out really good. You don't want to rush it because it will only slow down the recovery even more, but I'm sure you know that. I had to stay off of it for quite awhile, but I could ride the stationary bike. Hopefully yours isn't as bad as mine was. Hope you have a speedy recovery.

[kidwoo]

I posted this in the wrong forum first but it belongs here.


This is getting good.

[kidwoo]

Bump for some info that might benefit some folks.

......it got way worse than that pic btw.


Finally got an appointment with the doc I wanted to see, plus I needed to let some time pass for the swelling to subside.

Apparently two med school buddies of his are working for pro football teams where torn hammys are pretty much a part of life. A few years ago they tried injecting cortisone right into the tear, to slow down the fiberous networking of scar tissue. They're thinking was that with slowed regeneration, activity can rebuild the muscle better without making a dense knot that is the culprit with so many recurrences with this injury. They're findings were that recurrance dropped significantly.

So I've got this 13ft needle going into the back of my thigh thinking "fuck, how many of these can I take?" Good news......one time only. I know constant steroidal pokey pokes can cause problems so this was good news.

Injury date was Aug 21. At 8 days I was pedaling around a hardtail with flats on a big lakebed with pretty religious morning and evening stretches. At 17 days I tried a road ride in clipless pedals, with about 2 grand of climbing in it......not a lot of pain but weak as hell.

The next day, I saw the doc, had some words and got the cortisone. So at 19 days, just shy of 3 weeks from injury, I went on my first mtb ride. Didn't push it too hard on the climbs but rode for about 2 hours in clipless pedals and the thing seems to want to be worked now, not much pain but defintely found some no nos trying to bunny hop/manual in some spots........hard to break the instincts.......

The biggest concern my doc had was skiing. Obviously getting ejected foreward would be very bad. I'll post more when the time comes but I figured somebody might use this info.

[upallnight]

wow k-dub... glad to hear you are sensibly working back up. hope that your program continues with success so you are strong enough to go confidently into ski season.

could you return to boarding (temporarily, if ya had to) to let it heal further during the winter, if nec.?

[kidwoo]

wow k-dub... glad to hear you are sensibly working back up. hope that your program continues with success so you are strong enough to go confidently into ski season.

could you return to boarding (temporarily, if ya had to) to let it heal further during the winter, if nec.?

I'm shopping for another splitboard as we speak.

[GeNe_]

dude, we're in the same boat!

In April I was in Tahoe, Cali for the USASA nationals.. I was having a blast when I took the forbidden "last run".... I'm very superstitious about last runs... But I went anyways.. I came off the jump for a back 5 and it was just too slushy.. I landed on my shoulder separating it and than somehow tore my hammy... I had about the same exact looking bruise as you did... This all happened 3 days b4 my competiton.... BIG BUMMER... I still competed (took a bottle of advil and wrapped the shit out of my leg and took 50th out of 80 :P)

Sat for a month or so.. I walked A LOT... Summer came and I started running a bit and than started biking... Here we are in december and I'm still feeling pain in it... It really freaks me out to feel the muscle mass difference between my two hammys.. It's actually 2:41am right now and I was freaking out about it so I googled for blown hammies and came to this... I'm glad to know I'm not the only one..