Hamstring health, performance and injury prevention

With new COVID lockdowns in place for Greater Sydney and community sport taking a 2 week break, we often see these types of unscheduled breaks lead to injuries when sport resumes.

Planning ahead and implementing some strategies for injury prevention will help you navigate the lockdown break and keep you on the pitch for longer.

Hamstring injuries are common amongst professional footballers and Sunday afternoon superstars alike.

Some research into hamstring injuries has demonstrated that if the hamstring musculature is strong and flexible as opposed to weak and short then it significantly decreases the risk of hamstring injury throughout the course of a season (Timmins et al. 2016 and Bourne et al. 2018). 

The Quadrant of Doom

Below is an infographic from YLM Sports Science that clearly demonstrates the relationship between strength, flexibility and injury risk. The other way to frame this is in terms of capacity. The greater the strength and movement capacity then the less likely things are to go wrong. 

The other benefit from all of the below is that by incorporating this it will not decrease injury risk but also improve performance!

Knowing this is all well and good but we also want to practically act on this. How do we build things up from a loading, flexibility and strength point of view. Below is another great infographic from YLM Sports Science that shows specific ways to address all these areas.

In summary to build strong, functional and flexible hamstrings then it is worth looking at an exercise program that includes hip and knee dominant exercises that is gradually overloaded to create adaptation. It is also worth adding some running and sprint work into the program as this is shown to have a protective effect and also some loaded flexibility work to strengthen the hamstrings in lengthened positions (Oakley et al.2018).

Take Home points for hamstring performance and health:

• Strong and long hamstrings are the goal

• Use knee and hip dominant strengthening exercises

• Incorporate sprint work

• Work on flexibility

• Progressively overload

• Stay consistent

References:

1. Timmins RG, Bourne MN, Shield AJ, et al. Short biceps femoris fascicles and eccentric knee flexor weakness increase the risk of hamstring injury in elite football (soccer): a prospective cohort study. Br J Sports Med 2016;50:1524-1535. https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/50/24/1524

2. Bourne, Matthew N., Timmins, Ryan, Opar, David A., Pizzari, Tania, Ruddy, Joshua, Sims, Casey, WIlliams, Morgan, & Shield, Anthony (2018) An evidence-based framework for strengthening exercises to prevent hamstring injury. Sports Medicine, 48(2), pp. 251-267. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-017-0796-xhttps://ylmsportscience.com/

3. 2017/11/26/hamstring-strain-injury-escape-the-quadrant-of-doom/

4. https://ylmsportscience.com/2017/05/06/holistic-hamstring-health-not-just-the-nordic-hamstring-exercise/

5. Oakley AJ, Jennings J, Bishop CJ. Holistic hamstring health: not just the Nordic hamstring exercise. Br J Sports Med 2018;52:816-817. https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/52/13/816

Netball Knee Program - Reducing injury and improving performance - Physio Sutherland

Joel is a Physiotherapist from Flow Physio Co Sutherland with a passion for helping sportspeople perform at their best. Today he talks through the Netball Australia KNEE Program for improving performance and reducing injury risk.

What is the Netball KNEE Program?

The Netball KNEE program is a court-side warm up to help players prepare to play, move efficiently and land safely. It was designed by Netball Australia and a bunch of experts from various fields for people of all levels.

The goal is to build strength and control of your body in short, sharp movements that are specific to netball. What we’ve seen it do is improve performance and reduce chance of injuries - because you’re stronger, faster and fitter!

Why do the Netball Knee Program?

Knees and ankles are the most common injuries in netballers and most of these injuries occur when landing. The Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) represents roughly 1/3 of serious injuries reported in netballers every year.

The KNEE Program is based on injury prevention programs that have been proven effective in reducing lower limb injuries generally and specifically reducing ACL injuries from 40–70% (Netball Australia).

How can we implement it?

What we want to do at Flow is to provide an individualised exercise program for any netballer that comes into the clinic based on this program. We want to teach you this program to be able to use it as your warm up for training and games to reduce your injury risk and improve your performance on the court.

We would run you through a 1 on 1 assessment, looking at injury history and where you want to improve, then we will design a program individualised for you that you can complete in our group classes here in the clinic.

If you want to use this as a fitness session for you and a few team members, we can organise sessions just for you and your teammates. If you want to work individually on improving yourself, we are happy to work with that too!

Get in touch and we can chat about how it might work best for you!