Everyone in the western world sits too much, especially in the Boulder, Colorado area. If you sit frequently, you teach certain muscles to be tight and certain ones to be weak. Our hamstring muscles are one group of muscles that we consistently tighten as we sit. Don’t let hamstring tightness keep you from doing you next hike, finishing your next race, or doing the activities that you love. Our mission at BSC is to educate and guide you out of pain and back to your active lifestyle.
In this article we review how to test and teach you some strategies for a fix.
Anatomy Review
The hamstring muscle group consists of three separate muscles: the semitendinosis, the semimembranosus, and the biceps femoris. These guys start at your sit bone and run down behind the knee to help you bend the knee. When you’re seated, you bring the ends of the muscles closer together. Held in this position for a long period of time, they will become shortened and tight!
40+ hours a week of sitting and making them tight is frequently followed by hiking, running, biking, or any other hamstring demanding exercise leads to a build up of muscle adhesions, scar tissue, and that knot that you can never stretch enough.
Due to the hamstring attachment on your sit bones, if the muscles shorten or get tight, they change the way the joints of the hips and lower back can move. This change in biomechanics leads to lower back pain and knee pain.
If your hamstring tension is different side to side, then you also are more likely to injure yourself during activity.
How do you know if your hamstrings are too tight?
We filmed this video in the clinic recently to teach you how to perform a self assessment at home to help identify tightness that needs to be addressed. Watch the video below and film your self test from the side.
How to fix it
Step one: release the tightness
Step two: restore normal joint mobility
Step three: strengthen the hips, hamstrings, and core
1. Boulder Deep Tissue Massage -
One of the best ways to maintain normal muscle length is to work out the knots with deep tissue massage. Deep tissue massage helps to manually break up the fascia, muscle, and connective tissues to allow for normal motion.
In our office we have two amazing massage therapist who are experts at finding and releasing the tight muscle knots. We offer deep tissue massage that is really therapeutic none of the push your skin around and relax you stuff : ).
At home, use a foam roller or lacrosse ball to release those hamstrings and glutes.
2. Restore normal joint mobility -
If you have had tightness, especially asymmetric tightness in your hamstrings, you likely have some torsion in your lower back and sacroiliac joint. This can lead to feeling off or rotated through your hips. Sometimes people feel like their sit bones are uneven when sitting on a hard surface or a bike saddle. Often hamstring tightness will lead to stiff, achy, and sometimes pinching pain in the lower back and hips with movement. If any of these are going on, chiropractic mobilization of your hips and lower back after releasing some of the tightness will solve these problems!
3. Strength
Often people neglect this last step. If you skip strength, you will likely feel tightness and pain return after a short period of time!
Now that you have a good foundation to build on, (no more tightness or joint restriction) we can start the process of building strength in your core, glutes, and hamstrings to avoid any future flare ups. Our physical therapist, Dr. Colleen, will do an examination to identify your weakest links and create a plan to eliminate them for good. Here are a few examples of hamstring, hip, and core exercises that may be a part of your plan.
If you found that your hamstring muscles are too tight, schedule an appointment at our Boulder Chiropractor and physical therapy office for an evaluation. We are here to guide you back to a pain free life!
We have tools like Active Release Technique, Graston technique, dry needling, boulder deep tissue massage, Functional Range Conditioning, yoga, and boulder physical therapy to help get your flexibility back!
If you find this article helpful, share with a friend and check out our Youtube channel, instagram account, and other blogs for more exercises, health tips, and self assessment videos.