How To Heal A Hamstring Injury

Mind is All

If you play sports, or if you ever played sports for an extensive potion of your life, there is a fairly good chance you have dealt with a hamstring injury at one point or another, as the hamstring is one of the most commonly injured muscles among athletes - but even if you do not play sports any longer (in fact, even if you have never played sports!), you can still end up with a hamstring injury. A hamstring injury can give you quite a bit of discomfort, and it can be one heck of a nuisance - and you may actually be surprised to realize what you should do in order to heal a hamstring injury if you have one.

The most surprising thing of all to most people, when they end up with a hamstring strain, is the fact that they should not stretch it; because of the tightness they will always feel in their hamstring, it will feel as though stretching is the best, most natural way to fix the problem, but because the muscles are trying to heal themselves, this will actually make things worse.

What you can do, however, to help along the healing process is firstly, stay off your feet as much as possible, and secondly, alternate heat and ice on the strained muscle; when you stay off your feet, you will give your muscles a chance to rest and heal themselves, and when you circulate heat and cold, you will keep the blood flowing while also dulling the pain.

And as far as hamstring injuries go, the trickiest thing of all is the fact that they will often start to feel better, only to get worse when you overexert yourself. Make sure you wait well beyond the point when it feels better before you try to use it to its fullest if you are dealing with a hamstring strain, lest you end up back at square one all over again.