I have a bad hamstring injury that will most likely take another one to three months to fully heal. I have been instructed by my therapist/doctor to not lift with my hamstring until cleared. I started working out 4 times a week about three weeks ago, and have started intaking 3000+ calories a day.
I am 6’0" and 160lbs, trying to get to 175. I started at 157 i think, so progress has been made. I have read about how important legs are to gaining weight, and was wondering what I should do about it right now. Should I continue upper body until healed or is there some leg stuff I can do? How worse off will my gaining be without legs?
what did you do to your hamstring? Tear it?
I tore my hamstring at track last year and it hampered me for three months, mostly because I vaulted the day after i tore it and then i reinjured it halfway into the season.
Yeah, I was doing sprints and after the 9th or tenth one, I felt a weird feeling in it.
I played Ultimate, and had a tournament that weekend, where I played a few points on it. Thats where I think I did the real damage. Two weeks later, I tried to play a point when my team needed me, and thats when I learned I was an idiot. Its been probably about 4-5 months of healing right now.
i tore mine because back then i didn’t stretch and wasn’t even in proper shape, it was just a weird feeling i got doing 100m drills at practice. It didn’t hurt so much as just slow me down. The next day i downed 12 asprin and 2 red bulls then vaulted, that probably slowed down the healing.
The way i healed it was stretching a lot, like 6 minutes each leg since i wasn’t allowed to run at practice so I’d stretch instead.
[quote]superhero#1 wrote:
i tore mine because back then i didn’t stretch and wasn’t even in proper shape, it was just a weird feeling i got doing 100m drills at practice. It didn’t hurt so much as just slow me down. The next day i downed 12 asprin and 2 red bulls then vaulted, that probably slowed down the healing.
The way i healed it was stretching a lot, like 6 minutes each leg since i wasn’t allowed to run at practice so I’d stretch instead.[/quote]
Yikes, not good!! 12 aspirin + 2 red bull defenitley did NOT help you my man.
Ok to the OP, sounds like you have a Grade 2 Hamstring strain that you have not let heal properly and has recurring problems. Grade 3 is a full tear, you would know it if you did that.
I would look into getting some serious ART work to help alleviate the scar tissue build up you have in there. It’s going to take a while to help re-educate the muscle length and break up that scar tissue.
The good thing about ART is not only are they assessing your injury site, they will look around the entire body to see what is weak. A weakness somewhere may be contributing to why you have hamstring problems. I.e. glutes not firing properly, weak abductors, etc.
More details would be helpful too, as in your strength training routine, your warm up, your diet, etc. All of these will play a factor in your performance.
Never underestimate the importance of legs in your gaining, be it the numbers on the weighing scale or how it will affect gaining on the rest of your body.
Having said that, I don’t think there is much you can do about it (training-wise), just give it time to heal properly instead of rushing it and making it worse. Stick to bodyweight exercises for you lower body. If you are able to sit, stand and walk without difficulty, I’m sure it won’t hurt to do bodyweight squats, lunges and gradually even single leg work like pistols or unweighted bulgarian split squats. Again, proceed with caution, you don’t want to make it worse.
[quote]Ipsum wrote:
proceed with caution, you don’t want to make it worse.[/quote]
QFT, take the time off if you have to I can think of tons of people on the football team who “toughed” out an injury midgame and continued playing only to be sidelined for the rest of the season.
[quote]Ipsum wrote:
Never underestimate the importance of legs in your gaining, be it the numbers on the weighing scale or how it will affect gaining on the rest of your body.
Having said that, I don’t think there is much you can do about it (training-wise), just give it time to heal properly instead of rushing it and making it worse. Stick to bodyweight exercises for you lower body. If you are able to sit, stand and walk without difficulty, I’m sure it won’t hurt to do bodyweight squats, lunges and gradually even single leg work like pistols or unweighted bulgarian split squats. Again, proceed with caution, you don’t want to make it worse.
[/quote]
I don’t agree with your advice here…I’m surprised no one has mentioned it yet but just work upper body and YOUR NON INJURED LEG. the ART is obviously a good idea but hard to get in some places. Almost all hammy pulls are due to weak/non-active glutes. Be sure to do proper rehab once you’re better. Are you going to P.T.? Good luck. By the way, whoever said static stretching will help is mistaken. The hammies are better worked with dynamic flexibility and mobilizations.
[quote]Ipsum wrote:
Never underestimate the importance of legs in your gaining, be it the numbers on the weighing scale or how it will affect gaining on the rest of your body.
Having said that, I don’t think there is much you can do about it (training-wise), just give it time to heal properly instead of rushing it and making it worse. Stick to bodyweight exercises for you lower body. If you are able to sit, stand and walk without difficulty, I’m sure it won’t hurt to do bodyweight squats, lunges and gradually even single leg work like pistols or unweighted bulgarian split squats. Again, proceed with caution, you don’t want to make it worse.
[/quote]
Training the uninjured limb has neurological carry over to the injured limb, so you can train the leg that isn’t hurt.
I think it would be better to do things like step-ups and lunges to get the glutes firing if that is indeed your problem.
I would go to physical therapy because they’ll figure out what exactly your problem is and give you the proper exercises. Good luck.