The hamstring complex is a hot topic in sports performance as it’s a powerful hip extensor that plays a major role in sprinting speed, but bringing it more spotlight is a plague of hamstring issues many athletes and teams seem to suffer from.
A hamstring injury can now assure an athlete is out for at least 3-5 weeks and compound that with knowing a past hamstring injury is the biggest contributor to a future hamstring injury. Given the severity and re-occurrence of these injuries, everybody is after the magic pill to prevent an incident from occurring.
Unfortunately, like the risk of throwing a baseball 95mph, the nature of high velocity sprinting in sport is very demanding on the hamstrings and it’s a fine line between lightning speed and a hamstring injury.
For a real quick reminder of basic anatomy, the hamstring group is made-up of 3 muscles:
- Biceps Femoris (lateral group)
- Semitendinosus
- Semimembranosus
As sprinting speeds increase so does the stress, strain, and contraction velocity of all the hamstring musculature. These increases are necessary for faster running speeds but also a culprit behind hamstring injuries.
A recent review by Schache et al (2012) looked at the mechanics of the hamstring group during sprinting, here’s what they found (3).
- The long head of the bicep femoris had the largest peak musculotendon strain (12.0% increase)
- The semitendinosus had the greatest musculotendon lengthening velocity.
- Semimembranosus produced the highest musculotendon force, absorbed and generated the most musculotendon power, and performed the largest amount of concentric and eccentric work.
As you can see, as a whole, the hamstring complex undergo large changes in muscle length, force, and velocity, but especially the bicep femoris with the greatest peak musculotendon strain, which corresponds with research showing the femoris is the most injured hamstring muscle (4).
During ground preparation and just prior to ground contact, there is a large stretch going through the hamstrings and the stored elastic energy during the lengthening actions is then released at ground contact. The amount of eccentric and isometric contraction, before and at ground contact paired with incredible velocities and muscle length – and you’ve got yourself a recipe for disaster, but also a recipe for providing an adequate training stimulus to prepare for this environment.
Knowing when and how these groups interact is important to help train speed in a specific manner that prepares the tissues for the demands of high velocity sprinting.
As a whole, there are many considerations to consider when developing a plan of attack to prepare the hamstring complex for high velocity sprinting, here are some of those considerations.
- During ground preparation and at ground contact, the hamstring are at long muscle lengths undergoing eccentric and isometric contractions
Training should have an emphasis on eccentric and isometric work at length – Strength At Length
S/L Eccentric Hip Extension
S/L Posterior Sling Hold
- The hamstring complex has a long duration of activity and if neuromuscular coordination and proper contract-relax doesn’t occur, this long time-under-tension can increase early neuromuscular fatigue which is an environment for potential injury
Training should have components of contract-relax and teach releasing tension
S/L Hip Extension w/ Perturbation
Supine Straight Leg Band Leg Flutters
- The majority of hamstring injuries occur just prior or at ground contact, when the hamstring is undergoing rapid distal eccentric and isometric contraction. Key word, RAPID. Yet we see many hamstring movements conducted in a slow manner
Training should include high velocity and high loads such as rapid eccentrics and maximal effort loads
S/L Drop Hip Extension
Band Overspeed RDL
- As sprinting speeds increase and muscles are shortened at increasingly higher velocities, athletes have less time to generate the maximal forces. What this means is that many factors, such as elastic response, pre-tensing, and joint stiffness are extremely important. Using Stretch-Shortening concepts on the hamstring prepares the body for specific transfer to performance (1,2)
Training should include elastic and plyometric types actions for the hamstrings
S/L RDL Pumps w/ Support
S/L Posterior Sling Fires
Prime Times
- Specificity is a must for high transfer to sprinting speed, so analyze acceleration and sprinting mechanics. During ground preparation, the hamstrings undergo eccentric action, distally, while flexed at the hip. This is in opposition of what many hamstring specific exercises or rehab programs utilized.
Training should include eccentric and isometric actions while the hip is flexed
Razor Partner Glute/Ham
Eccentric-Isometric RDL
- Training the hamstrings in a unilateral, open chain manner is specific to the manner of execution an athlete needs.
Hamstrings in the Air, Glutes on the Ground
S/L Reverse Hyper Throws
High Speed Hamstrings
At the end of the day, the best advice for healthy and high performing hamstrings is proper progression, volume, rest periods, fatigue management, and adequate stimulus. While sprinting, the best hamstring exercise, is key in addressing the hamstring issue, doing things in the weight room can assist when max velocity sprinting isn’t an option. The underlying biomechanics and physiology for developing high speed hamstrings and preparing this muscle group for the demands on sprinting are laid out. The job now is to find your own methods to produce the desired training effect. The movements laid out are hopefully ideas to stimulate your creative juices and give your athletes high-speed hamstrings.
About Michael Zweifel
Michael is a CSCS, IYCA certified practitioner, and was the all time NCAA leading receiver with 463 receptions in his playing days at University of Dubuque.
Buiding Better Athletes (BBA) is committed to an evidence based practice towards sports performance, and attaching physical preparation from every angle possible – physical, mental, nutritional, soft-tissue, mobility. Our focus is building the athlete from the ground up by mastering the fundamentals of movement mastery, strength/power training, recovery modalities, and giving athletes ownership of the Other 23.
Using these methods and principles, BBA has been fortunate to help athletes to…
- 5 NFL Players
- 1 CFL Player
- 1 Gatorade State Player of the Year (Basketball)
- 7 Collegiate All-Americans
- 12 Conference Player of the Year
- 11 Division I Athletes
- 52 All-Conference Athletes
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