How to get over hamstring pain
Our expert Lucy Wyndham-Read discusses the importance of being active, and suggests some simple exercises we can do anywhere to help us get into better shape as the holiday season approaches.
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Transcript
Presenter - Ok. Hopefully that's answered your question Betty. We've got another question in from Jo Paslow, "I fell off the treadmill 3 weeks ago" says Jo "and since then I've been suffering with pain in my hamstring. Starts in my bottom, finishes behind my knee. I haven't been able to go to the gym since then but I am a part time nanny and have been working. So how long will this take to get better? Some days it's agony. It feels better first thing in the morning."
Lucy - You know I'd say with that to actually go and have it checked out, go and see a physio, go and see a doctor, because the last thing you want to do is make that injury worse. But what she could be doing in the meantime is just doing some abdominal exercises, just to really strengthen what we call her core muscles, because it's amazing how important it is to have strong abdominal muscles, because they kind of help, if you have an injury it sort of keeps your body in balance and if you've got one hamstring that's slightly damaged then we tend to compensate by using the other one, and you can pull your body out of alignment, so I would really recommend to just do some very very simple abdominal toning exercises, and also to go and get it checked properly. Obviously you wouldn't want to be doing anything that's high impact if you've got a sore muscle, and really a very simple abdominal exercise that she could be doing is just literally pulling the belly button in tight to the spine, and what that does is it works what we call our corset muscles which are attached from the ribs all the way down to the hips, front and back, so it's quite a big area, and that just focusing by just literally pulling it in tight to the spine just strengthens that muscle and will help keep her hips in alignment, which if she's got an injured hamstring could slightly pull her out of alignment, so I would say definitely go and get it checked if it hasn't cleared up and work on doing those abdominals in the meantime
Presenter - Are you saying hold the tummy in?
Lucy - Yes you literally just pull your navel tight into your spine
Presenter - I'm doing it now
Lucy - And it's great, and do you know what it does, immediately it gives people amazing posture
Presenter - Oh right
Lucy - And it's – the more you do it, the easier it becomes, the stronger – then naturally that muscle sort of holds that contraction
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