Healthy Hamstring!

Hello,

Good news, this past Friday, my follow up ultrasound revealed a healthy hamstring. The tear has completely closed and there is no sign of scar tissue! On the other hand, the muscle is still quite weak and I have to complete daily physiotherapy exercises to re-strengthen the hamstring to be ready to handle the amount of stress from a regular training session.

I am continually amazed at the attention to detail of the medical staff at the ISM (institute of sport medicine). Minimizing the amount of time an athlete sits out of training due to injury is always a priority. However, it was not enough just to repair a torn hamstring in 3 weeks, compared to a recovery time of up to 6 weeks minus the injections; they needed to know why the tear happened in the first place to prevent future problems.

To do this, I was hooked up to an EMG for my hamstring and glutes to observe the firing pattern. The results we not great and clearly pointed to a cause of my tear. What the test showed was that my hamstring fires 0.3sec too quickly and before my glutes, which is an incorrect order. As a result, I have added to my list of physio/recovery exercises and have to retrain this pattern of fire between my glutes/hamstring to prevent future injuries.

And now, the goal is to work daily at the exercises and retest in 2-3 weeks to ensure I am doing the exercises correctly and then add to the degree of difficulty and get closer to adapting the drills to what I require in my sport. Therefore, it now looks like my season will be slightly delayed and begin this year at the start of December. This seems like a late start date, however, my current season has just ended at the start of October, I needed to fully recover emotionally and physically after one season before a new one can properly begin, and next season will go until the end of October with the goal of the Common Wealth Games.

Overall, I feel like things are going well and I am looking forward to what comes next. As for an update on the coaching front … still no decision … but getting there!

Hope you all had a safe and happy Halloween!

Your Athlete,
Susan