Tweaked hamstring while running

If it were me, I would avoid any deep stretching as a strain or tear may become worse with stretching.

Rest, ice, maybe some heat, Ibuprofen, massage gun if you can stand it.

Light walking would be good if it doesn't cause more pain. I'd keep it extremely light and short. Reevaluate after a week.

I've tweaked my hamstrings and quads before, and it sucks. But they always got better with time and rest.

quote:

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Felt some slight pain while running and then the pain got really strong. Stopped, stretched, and tried running again. That was a mistake...could barely walk to my car

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This is exactly how I destroyed my legs in college. My advice is take it SLOW. I don't have any rehab advice besides don't rush back into it like I did, because the consequences linger. RICE it, ease back into it with walking.

Oh man. I had an identical experience last Fall that took me out of running for a few months. Had I known more, I would have recovered within the month. So, same as you, ran 4-5x/week for 2+ miles on average. Here is how my injury happened, what I did wrong, what I did right, and what I realized that caused the problem.

I never had a problem running in 2021. I always ran my avg 2 miles 4-5x week, and allowed proper rest. I'll note that my runs would average 9-10min/mile to keep things easy. I started experiencing slight pain in my left hamstring in mid-October. I immediately reduced my run count for the week and started stretching a lot. The problem kept persisting and slowly increasing pain intensity. After a few weeks of dealing with it, I stopped running altogether, but continued constant daily stretching. It would start feeling better but any run would irritate it immediately. Finally, in December, I said frick running and frick stretching lol. Within 3-4 weeks (mid-January), there was zero pain. I decided to run again and never had the issue again.

You can probably tell with my story what caused the pain to start to occur, and what made recovery linger. The only thing I changed in my running routine prior to the injury was stretching a good bit before my run. IMO that resulted in an injury. The solution for recovering from the injury was to stop running and stretching altogether.

Since that whole ordeal, I have decided to take a vigorous walk or do stretching of my legs without using my upper body. What does that mean? I will stretch my hamstring by slowly swinging a single leg up for a bit, then go backwards for my glutes, and standing calf raise for the calves of course. However, I rarely do the stretches and just add a vigorous walk to start off my run.

Tl;dr I believe stretching before running caused my hamstring issue, and continuing to stretch delayed recovery. Also, I am not a doctor ;)