Conversation between me and a sports injury therapist
"for more specific advice I need to know two things, 1st, when lying flat, face up, how far can you lift your legs, one at a time, and maitain straight leg, give me a degrees of movement and 2nd lying face down, put your hands under your anterior super illiac spines, ( the sticky out bits of your pelvis on the front) and is the weight evenly distributed left /right. then monitor weight whilst you flex the knee and bring one foot up towards glutes, what happens to weight transfer, repeat other side, regards"
Me - "wife reckons about 80 degrees for each, I think left is a bit lower, maybe about 70 degrees
Hands under hips weigh starts slightly to left, as I lift each foot, weight shifts to that side to start, then to other side."
Him - "90 degrees is normal for non athletes, your glutes are over active if the weight goes contralateral, you should concentrate on eccentric contactions of the hamstrings and stretching them until they get to 90 degrees, also get wife to press into your glutes with thumb whilst you flex knee, it may hurt a bit but you need to switch off glutes as they shouldnt get involved in flexing knee, cycling keeps hamstrings short so efffective stretching is mandatory Im fraid, its usually a myofascial issue that means the muscles wont lengthen, especially if you drive, fly, travel, sit in airport lounges and offices, leg swinging is a good dynamic way of getting some lenght into the hammys"
So, anyone else have this problem? I'm guessing at least a few of you might.
Exercises I've looked up so far include:
"for more specific advice I need to know two things, 1st, when lying flat, face up, how far can you lift your legs, one at a time, and maitain straight leg, give me a degrees of movement and 2nd lying face down, put your hands under your anterior super illiac spines, ( the sticky out bits of your pelvis on the front) and is the weight evenly distributed left /right. then monitor weight whilst you flex the knee and bring one foot up towards glutes, what happens to weight transfer, repeat other side, regards"
Me - "wife reckons about 80 degrees for each, I think left is a bit lower, maybe about 70 degrees
Hands under hips weigh starts slightly to left, as I lift each foot, weight shifts to that side to start, then to other side."
Him - "90 degrees is normal for non athletes, your glutes are over active if the weight goes contralateral, you should concentrate on eccentric contactions of the hamstrings and stretching them until they get to 90 degrees, also get wife to press into your glutes with thumb whilst you flex knee, it may hurt a bit but you need to switch off glutes as they shouldnt get involved in flexing knee, cycling keeps hamstrings short so efffective stretching is mandatory Im fraid, its usually a myofascial issue that means the muscles wont lengthen, especially if you drive, fly, travel, sit in airport lounges and offices, leg swinging is a good dynamic way of getting some lenght into the hammys"
So, anyone else have this problem? I'm guessing at least a few of you might.
Exercises I've looked up so far include:
- Straight leg deadlift
- Good Mornings
- Lunges
- Eccentric Hamstring curl (kneeling up, lean forward, use hams to bring you back up)
- Stretching
- leg swings (running motion)
- single leg squats