If you have tight hamstrings, you’re not alone! Unless you have a regular stretching practice as part of your workout routine, odds are you can’t touch your toes.
But why are they tight? And what can you do to help loosen them up so you aren’t getting so much carry-over tension in your low back?
For a lot of people, this is the mindset, but no matter how much they stretch those tight hamstrings, there is no significant change. Unfortunately, fixing tight hamstrings with stretching is not that simple.
Your hamstrings are a group of three muscles running down the backside of your legs that connect your “sits bones” at the bottom of your hips (the little bony protrusions you can feel underneath your butt when you sit in a chair or on the floor) to the top of your calf and shin bones.
- Most people with constant feeling of tightness in hamstring has what we call neurological tightness
- It’s a perceived tightness caused by your brain due to lack of stability around our hip and knees area
- So even though then you do the hamstring length test you do not have tight hamstring you still feel as if your hamstrings are constantly tight
- To fix these issues here are some of the strengthening exercises you can start doing
Tightness, or even the feeling of tightness, in the hamstring can be influenced by a number of factors:
- The muscle actually being short to the point where the muscles fibres aren’t long enough causing a restriction in movement.
- Weakness in the muscle can cause the muscle to go into a protective spasm, tighten up and feel stiff.
- A muscle, which has recently been exercised or worked, will hold extra muscle tone and therefore a slight restriction in movement.
- A muscle that is being overworked, due to weakness in another muscle will become tight.
Our physiotherapist, Melanie Lim, has a Bachelor of Physiotherapy Graduate from the University of Melbourne.
With her wealth of clinical experience – in both public and private systems, Melanie is contactable at Capital Physiotherapy’s Hawthorn Physio clinic to provide you with the best physio treatment in the Hawthorn and for the surrounding suburbs.
At the Hawthorn physio clinic, Capital Physiotherapy offer bulk billing for their patients. Get in contact with Melanie today and book an appointment for a one on one session with her!She has completed advance training to specialise in a range of physical therapy treatments such as sport, dance, pre and postnatal, and dry needling. With a keen interest in treating and educating her clients (and YouTube audience), she aims to create custom pain treatment management plans for the Hawthorn community, and Melbourne at large.
