Hamstring Pain Suggestions

[Czon&Kevin]

Nice meeting you all, this is Czon from Hong Kong and this will be my first post!

I have this pain at the back of my leg close to my hip for about 5 months now, the sensation is like something tearing apart inside, I can pinpoint the position of the sensation.

Now I cannot get to front split, pike and pancake due to the pain.  Pain also appears when i bend over and lift my leg up (less when the leg is bent)

I have been trying with different stretches, and needle work, but so far without much success, and the condition fluctuates.   

I dug into some older posts and I will add to my routine: "sit on the floor, and get that lacrosse ball in the right spot, and then do the one-leg bent-leg hamstring stretch (hold the working leg's foot; pull body onto thigh, slowly straighten leg; other leg folded out to the side). As soon as you even begin to stress that area (at the front of the ischial tuberosities, I am guessing) the ball will target exactly the fascia that's needed. As soon as you feel that, stop, and simply stay there. You can add small movements too, if you want (will distract you from the pain AND work the fascia)." , and report back on my progress.

This bothers me quite a bit and my judgement on what to do, how much i should do maybe clouded by my eagerness to get better soon.   If there is any comment, suggestions or recommendations please feel free to let me know!

[Nathan]

Hey Czon! Good to see you here on the boards 

Not much to add, unfortunately, but to expand on that quote a bit, you really may not even need to try to straighten the leg. I would also suggest doing it sitting on a table or some other raised surface that will allow you to keep the leg bent as much as needed. Start with a 90 degree bend at the knee (just let the lower leg hang off of the table), and carefully start to work into the sensitive area. My guess is that you will be able to find the spot that needs attention without straightening the leg at all! Remember that discomfort is okay, but if you feel pain then roll around the area first and slowly work toward the "epicenter" as appropriate.

Aside from that, I will remind you of two things I am sure you already know: much of it could be mental (expecting the pain to be there), and it may simply take more time (than you'd like). I had a lingering soreness in my left hip area after the Singapore workshop where we met. It was fairly intense during my pancake stretching, but I carefully worked with it and did not avoid it. Just recently I noticed it has completely disappeared and my pancake feels more comfortable than ever before. So approach it with mindfulness and try not to feel rushed to "fix" yourself.

The pain is a part of who Czon is at this moment in time, so accept it, explore it, and work with it, and I bet it will be gone before you know it  

[Czon&Kevin]

Thanks Nathan!

My latest update is it is getting better and I am slowly getting back into the poses more, bit by bit  

I think the major change is that I am placing much less focus on the problematic part, even talk less about it and just be patient and let it rest!

will post an update in a couple of months!

[Kit_L]

Welcome Czon. I had a really sore R hamstring for over two years; I kept doing all the things I do and one day, on a workshop, I was able to do the standing Y pose perfectly on both legs—and zero transition from really sore to moving well. I cannot explain it, but time and work does seem to fix everything.

[CraigR]

Hey Czon,

I've had a similar issue myself for the past few months, with a kind of sharp sensation up high close to the attachment point of my hamstring.

For me I found massage, foam rolling, lacrosse ball etc all feel great whilst doing it, but haven't really helped.  I haven't really changed my stretching routine but I definitely did need to work into poses like pancake a lot slower than I normally would.  Patience is definitely a key, and like Nathan mentioned above perhaps there's some kind of guarding of that area, due to fear perhaps, but I do find it reduces enough to allow a deep stretch if given enough time.

The one thing that I feel has really been working well though is a focus on movements to really wake up the deep hip stabilisation muscles on that leg.  Essentially all I'm doing is a lot of different movements while balancing on one leg and focusing on control at the hip.

Funnily enough Liv taught a really nice hip stabilisation sequence at a recent DITS workshop (some of it similar to what I was already doing myself), and mentioned something about a few people with various hamstring related issues that had cleared up after working on that sequence.

Maybe it might be worth exploring some activation and stabilisation work for that hip too.