The Long and Short of Legs

Many people struggle to lengthen their hamstrings, but working too aggressively can lead to injury. Here are some crucial tips for getting a safe stretch.

By Julie Gudmestad

Too Much of a Good Thing

Why do so many yoga students develop the nagging, frustrating pain that indicates strained hamstrings? Think about the poses that usually make up your yoga practice. On an average day, do you do lots of poses that stretch your hamstrings? Do you do many standing forward bends, like Uttanasana and Prasarita Padottanasana (Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend), and many seated forward bends? Chances are, the answer is yes; most students include quite a few of these poses in each practice session. Several other standing poses also lengthen the hamstrings, including Trikonasana (Triangle Pose) and Parsvottanasana (Intense Side Stretch Pose). And let's not forget Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog Pose). If you practice Ashtanga Yoga, Power Yoga, or a similar flowing yoga style, you probably do dozens of Down Dogs every time you're on the mat. All of this stretching can cause the hamstrings to become very flexible and even overstretched in relation to the other leg and hip muscles.

The plot thickens if you don't do much to strengthen your hamstrings. These long, vulnerable muscles are then liable to develop microscopic tears if a big load is placed on them, whether by stretching or contracting; they simply don't have the structural integrity to handle the intense pull developed by a big stretch or the internal tension developed by a big contraction, and the tissue breaks down.

I've never seen a practitioner create a dramatic and debilitating rupture to the main body of a hamstring by doing yoga, although such injuries are common in sports activities that demand more explosive hamstring movements and sudden violent stretching, such as football, baseball, soccer, and weightlifting. Instead, the usual breakdown in yoga students seems to be microscopic tearing where the hamstrings attach to the ischial tuberosities. The body responds to those tears with pain and inflammation, which includes swelling, so of course it's uncomfortable to sit on the sitting bones. The muscle still functions, but it will probably be uncomfortable to stretch or contract it.

A Repair Manual

The first lesson many yoga students with injured hamstrings need to learn is that stretching isn't always appropriate for injured or painful body parts. When you tear soft tissue, including muscles, tendons, and ligaments, your body begins its repairs by stitching tiny fibers of connective tissue across the damaged area. If you stretch the injured tissue, the tiny fibers can be torn loose, disrupting the healing process and lengthening the time needed for complete repair. In fact, if you repeatedly disturb the healing process, the tissue may never heal completely and the injured area can become chronically painful and inflamed. In addition, if the area does eventually heal, the repeated tearing and healing can create heavy scar tissue, which tends to receive less blood flow and be less pliable than normal tissue, setting the stage for reinjury.

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