Hamstring and Knee Pain

[chompygirl]

So, I decided to try out for the soccer team this year, and for the past week we've been doing intense conditioning--sprinting, mostly. Well, the first few days I had this horrible, horrible pain in both of my hamstrings. But I ran through it and then the pain went away. Well, Thursday these two HUGE ugly bruises showed up on the back of my hamstrings. They were terrible looking, but I couldn't feel any pain. I went to the doctor, and he couldn't say what the problem was, so he said I could play. Well, today we started conditioning again, and once I started sprinting, the pain came back, AND now I have this horrible pain in my knee whenever I bend it. I have conditioning again in about an hour...What should I do?? Should I just rest or go to the doctor again or...?

Thanks for the help! :sport:

 

[Jrahien]

Well, firstly, don't even think about exercising again with that.

Honestly, there's no way to tell what your condition is just over the internet. The knee pain could be from a separate injury completely, or it could involve the hamstring muscles that connect to the knee. As for the hamstring pain itself, it could be a bad strain, and if that's the case, you shouldn't exercise until they're completely healed. (If there's bruising, there's a number of complications that can occur if you continue to stress it out.)

So yeah, go back to a doctor. Maybe even a different one this time around, just so you get a different person's opinion.

 

[Albert Smith]

Most sportsmen from any running sport will eventually get sore hamstrings. Good news is that there are some easy exercises to get rid of the soreness. Just follow those along with your usual treatment and medicine:

After warming up, stand balanced or with your hand on a wall, with all your weight on one foot, let's say your left. Flex your hip and raise your right knee up to waist level with your lower leg hanging towards to ground. Now extend your right leg in front of you so your leg is parallel to the ground.

Now drop your leg back as if you were on a bicycle until your right leg is behind you, fully extended, to the extent of your backswing. Then raise your right heel all the way back until it nearly touches your behind. At that point you should feel your sore hamstrings getting worked pretty hard, but it should feel good.

Right when you reach that point, drop your leg back to starting position without touching the ground. Try doing this exercise very smoothly and in a rhythmic motion. Repeat this entire sequence of actions in a smooth manner such that the hip and leg move though a continuous arc without stopping or pausing. Try doing sets of 10 to 15 for each leg, about one per second or slightly faster.

Work your way up to 1 or 2 sets of 15 and 30 reps, each side, and if you wish to keep going, go up to sets of 45 or 60. At that point you should be going faster than you started.