See those guitar strings? Those represent my hamstrings. It's a metaphor.
Three miles today on the bike path. Very uneventful except for the lingering tightness in my hamstrings. And, when I say "tightness" I mean the tightest things you can imagine. Back in 2002, I attempted my first comeback. It didn't go so well. I ended up with Patello-Femoral Syndrome due to an imbalance in my quads. Or, more accurately a complete lack of a vastus medialis muscle. This quad imbalance led to my knee cap getting pulled outward and causing a fair amount of pain. Anywho, this led me to physical therapy, and the reason I'm telling you this. At the time, the physical therapist told me I had the second tightest hamstrings she had ever seen. The first? A fourteen year-old girl with a growth disorder. Yup, I win. Well, I think I'm getting close to that stage.
I'm stretching. I'm foam rolling. D is helping me stretch. They will not loosen up. Maybe I'm going through a growth spurt?
2 comments:
I am certainly not an expert, and probably can't tell you anything you don't already know - but I remember some good stuff from my time in the joint (PT). Have you ever used a strap to stretch your hamstrings - it actually stretches your calves first, and my PT told me that a lot of times tight hamstrings are part of tight calves (running on the road). The other thing I was thinking, that if your back hurt during the race last week, you may have been restricting your movement a little, changing your gait and tightening up the hammys. So, maybe the lower back strengthening is in order too. I hope that might be a little helpful, but I know what you're going through. That said, I DID start my PT exercises again - we could open a clinic!
You're dead on. Every PT, massage therapist, oft-injured PT frequent flyer has always said to me, "It's all connected." Unfortunately, most of my body parts are like the brats in kindergarten who don't like to share. Think: yelling "Gimme!" and tugging. So, yes...more exercises and probably more bacon.
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