So I’ve been diagnosed with High Hamstring Tendonosis.
Acute pain at the left hammy attachment and dull aching throughout the belly (deep in the belly) of the muscle itself.
Working on week 3 of physical therapy - core exercises, squats, one-leg squats, ball curls, band walks, walking lunges…
Trying to strengthen my glutes, loosen my tight hip flexors and generally work my core (which I thought was OK).
No. Running. At. All.
Swim and bike OK, though biking is not 100% pain free.
I read some boards where people had to stop running for 6 months or more to fix it.
Anyone here have experience with HHT or successful treatment of it?
This season’s cooked, but I’d like to have one next year.
The remedy you think to help this can actually cause the issue or inflame it moreso. I have a chronic mild one in right high hamstring, which I got FROM doing squats and one legged squats or pistols.
There’s an article on high hamstring tendonitis on one of the popular running mag sites. Google running + high hamstring tendonosis. The typical answers are reduction of activity but also using a foam roller.
Problem with foam rollers in high hamstring, is its hard to get up high in their near the groin and high hamstring.
Enter the softball.
Here’s what I do. And I can’t say this cures it, but this is coming from an M-WOD stretch, Kelly Starrett talks about this issue and doing this, and it hurts, but it makes it feel somewhat better a day later—at least to me it does. When the pain subsides, go get a softball with dimples from a sporting goods store, or just a standard hard softball.
Find a hard floor or chair and put the ball high up in there and sit down on the softball, roll up and down the area, especially obliquely. You will probably find this unbearable, just roll over it 10 times, stop, then next day 20 and so on.
Dg8trs,
I have been dealing with this for several seasons. It has been a huge challenge. I am back to racing this season but not where I was at. Perhaps, this off season I can kick it 100%. But it is a real pain in the A$$! It took me forever to get to the root cause. Once identified I was able to begin to fix it. Currently at 90% and holding steady.
If you want to chat hit me with a direct message. I will be happy to share what I went through and how I recovered.
I have a trigger point ball I have used off and on.
I’ll give it a shot on the floor.
I can deal with the sharp pain - it beats the throbbing ache when it’s really acting up.
Are you back to full training load?
Before i give random advice i’ll preface it by stating i’m a qualified physiotherapist working in musculoskeletal and sports for over a decade.
Some trigger point releasing will help albeit painfully, but current management evidence based practice for tendinopathies is leaning towards eccentric loading more and less concentric stuff. Similarly to doing step-heel drop offs for achilles tendinopathy and tenosynovitis, hamstring tendinosis will respond in the longer term (no short term fix sorry) is to eccentrically strengthen the muscle (strength whilst the muscle is lengthening).
This would be things like prone hamstring weighted lowering of the foot from a flexed knee position. To get up into the knee bend position you’d need ot assist with the good leg and your upper limbs (eg with a yoga band around your ankle to pull the leg up so the hamstring isn’t actively concentrically contracting (shortening with load)… you want to elongate the muscle against load which is where the lowering down of a weight against gravity can help.
Also note that eccentric training hurts. it will be somewhat aggravating but shouldn’t be crippling.
Find a good physiotherapist who can give you eccetric hamstring loading and minimise the concentric stuff (cycling should be limited to non painful spin only since cycling is entirely concentric and uses hami’s quite a bit depending on your technique and bike fit). But with the right treatment plan you should get some good results within about 6 weeks and then be able to slowly reintroduce light concentric stuff then impact work, and go from there in a graduated program.
good luck
My wife is going through this. Stretching really aggrivates it. Good massage work helps a lot, and PT with exercise bands to work the leg and hip area also works. She tried ART, but that also made it worse. Tough run sessions flares it up, but when she sticks to the massage and PT it almost never bothers her.
That’s interesting since I also have a fair amount of other strength-type work: squats, single-leg squats, lunges, single-leg deadlifts, etc.
I am assuming those are also eccentric and balancing exercises to also activate and strengthen the glutes.
I actually have a sprint race this Saturday and was planning on doing it, even though I have not run at all in three weeks and can’t run at close to full speed.
I’m not risking a significant setback by racing am I?
