Hamstring Update
A few weeks ago I shared that I was dealing with some soreness in my hamstring. I took several weeks off any sort of lower body exercise. No running, no weight lifting. I still did some walking, but limited it to short strolls around the block mainly to get fresh air.
Things have been so so since then. I definitely think I'm starting to see signs of improvement. My hamstring doesn't immediately hurt when I get out of bed in the morning anymore, and some days it doesn't bother me at all.
So I've slowly started to reintroduce some activity to see how my body reacts.
Last week I started with a couple of run/walk combos and some low body weight exercises with either body weight or very light weights.
For my runs, I started with running for one minute and then walking for one minute. I repeated that for a mile. My hamstring was tight, but it didn't hurt, and I focused on a lot of stretching.
Over several days, I've slowly increased the amount of time running in between the walk breaks from two minutes to three minutes. So far, it's been OK.
I've also been slowly increasing the duration of the workouts from one mile to 1.5 to 2 miles.
Today I covered 2.5 miles with a mix of walking and running. My hamstring is tight, but it doesn't really hurt.
On the weight lifting front, I've started reintroducing some lunges, squats and deadlifts, but I've either dropped all the weight or basically cut the weight in half from what I was using before this injury. I'm also focused on lots of glute exercises so that my hamstrings don't try to overcompensate for weak glutes.
This is obviously slower progress than I would have liked. I was hoping taking almost four weeks off of any lower body exercises would have gotten me back to 100 percent, but that's not what happened.
So for now I'm just focused on taking things day by day, trying to reintroduce some activity and following that up with good stretching and occasionally some ice or Icy Hot to help keep any potential inflammation in check.