Tight Hamstrings - Why stretching won't help and what you should do (Fast and easy solution)
Hello friend,
Today you are going to learn how to get rid of tight hamstrings once and for all, and I’ll give you a hint- I won’t be showing you any stretches.
In fact, I’m sure at some point you have learned a hamstring stretch, whether it be throwing your leg up on something and bending forward, sitting on the floor and folding over your straightened legs, or some variation of these two.
Are these valid ways to stretch the hamstrings? Yes.
Is this going to reduce the tightness in your hamstrings? No.
Woman performing pointless hamstring stretch.
To understand why this is the case, we need to understand:
1). What stretching is
2). What a tight muscle is
3). What the hamstrings do in our body
What is stretching?
Stretching as it is most frequently utilized involves lengthening a muscle across the joint or joints that it crosses, in a slow, controlled, and sustained manner at a low intensity. This is termed a static stretch.
Our goal when performing static stretching is to temporarily reduce the resting tone of the muscle of interest to allow it to move through a greater range of motion.
Unfortunately, traditional static stretching temporarily decreases the strength and power of a muscle. This is why strength coaches and trainers avoid static stretching prior to exercise, and instead use dynamic warm-ups and mobility drills, which will help improve range of motion without sacrificing power or strength.
What is a tight muscle?
If you search tight muscle on the internet, you get a lot of results that tell you a tight muscle is one that is stiff, or shorter than it should be, and can be remedied with stretching exercises.
However, if you understand what a muscle is, you can get an idea for how neither of these descriptions make much sense.
Without diving too deeply into the research, let’s compare a muscle to something we can all relate to: an elastic band.
Your muscles are just like elastic bands. (Except elastic bands can’t actively contract, don’t have a blood supply, nerve fibers, or sensory receptors… but just roll with me for a second here).
In fact, muscles and elastics both exhibit the property of viscoelasticity, a time-dependent stretch property. For example, if an elastic band is pulled and then released quickly, the length of the band after pulling it is the same as it was before you pulled it. However, if you pull an elastic band and leave it in a stretched out position for a day or two before releasing it, the length of the band will have increased relative to its length before you pulled it.
What does this have to do with stretching?
Well, let me ask you a question. If I asked you to make an elastic as tight as possible, how would you do it? See what I’m getting at…
You would pull the hamstring (I mean elastic) to its longest length, if your goal was to make it tighter.
What is the function of the hamstrings?
The hamstring is an important muscle in regards to holding our body upright and in regards to stabilizing our knee, our pelvis, and the rest of the body stacked on top of that pelvis. In fact, when you are standing, your glutes are mostly (and hopefully) inactive, and your hamstrings work with the back to hold the pelvis in a neutral position.
The hamstrings are one component of the posterior muscular chain, which roughly refers to your back muscles, glutes, and hamstrings. Like any group of muscles, each of these work together to help create balanced movement.
In terms of muscular actions, the hamstrings primarily function to:
1). Bend (flex) the knee
2). Extend the hips
3). Posteriorly tilt the pelvis (think of the end of a hip thrusting motion)
These two muscle groups are in direct opposition to each other, and if you are experiencing tight hamstrings, chances are, your back is working overtime, pulling on your hamstrings like wound-up elastic band.
Figure 1: Depicting neutral, forward rotation, and backward rotation of the pelvis. Forward rotation, characterized by increased back extensor muscle activity causes increased pull on the hamstrings, and thus the sensation of tight hamstrings.
In this model, the yellow band represents the back muscles and the blue band represents the hamstrings, each at optimal resting length and activity.
If we shorten the yellow band, simulating a muscle contraction of the back muscles, notice how the blue band is pulled taught, simulating the lengthening hamstrings.
If we shorten the blue band, simulating a contraction of the hamstrings, notice how the yellow band is pulled taught simulating the lengthening back muscles.
So what is the solution?
Maybe the answer to your tight hamstring problem has become clear now that you have learned a little about what a stretch is, what a tight muscle is, and what the hamstrings do.
But in case you haven’t figured it out yet…. The answer, counterintuitive as it might seem, is to strengthen your hamstrings.
I repeat:
“strengthen your hamstrings to get rid of tight hamstrings”
If you learn to contract your hamstrings properly, you will decrease the pull of the back muscles on the hamstrings, and relieve your hamstring tightness. You will achieve a neutral pelvic position and reap additional postural benefits, including enhancing opportunity for optimal abdominal and respiratory function.
Which exercises should you do?
Head over to the Rehab Corner Youtube Channel and watch my video on tight hamstrings. I explain what additional benefits strengthening my hamstrings has given me, what the three keys are for designing a hamstring exercise to counteract tight hamstrings, and I’ll show you three of my favorite hamstring exercises you can use today to get rid of your tight hamstrings.
Stay tuned for new posts, as I will dive into even further depth on this topic and show you simple and effective movement strategies that will help keep your back and hamstrings balanced during common movements such as the squat or deadlift.