Chronic Hamstring Problems

[Anonymous]

Reaching out for some advice on my daughters hamstrings. Daughter is 2012, we play EDP Gold and play year round. For 2 years now she has had chronic hamstring issues and pain. While we have had strains before, we also have periods of regular pain, where at the start of practice she will say they are hurting, she will stretch we get her grooving and the loosen up. When we get in these periods it becomes a season long fight to keep her healthy to play.

We are currently in winter season, so practice is two days a week, game every other week. I do not think she is over training as this is much dialed back from season. She started complaining last week of the tightness at practices and pain, yesterday we had super Y, followed by a game. She hobbled through the game and was very clearly limited by hamstring pain. Daughter is the type to never admit to being hurt, and always fine to play, so for her to be bothered to this degree must really be bad.

My questions is, having googled around, the causes seem to be, muscle imbalances, over training, or tight muscles. I think over training is not it.

Should I begin her on a daily routine of 3-4 sets of hamstring curls a day, and some stretching to try and fix any imbalances, or does anyone have advice on what i should be doing to treat this.

I was debating seeing the doctor, i assume the general practitioner will be useless for this however, what type of doctor should i be looking to if that is the case?

Appreciate all who can give me any guidance.

[Anonymous]

Go to the doctor. This is chronic because it wasn’t allowed to heal properly when the injury first occurred. She probably had a pull that she didn’t tell you about. And she continues to play a lot. My 2012 had a hamstring pull a year ago and we pulled him off soccer for a month, which absolutely killed him. He returned to practice but no games for another month. Once he was back, we got him into a routine of 10-15 minute stretches a few times a week and honed it on him on making sure he was warming up and stretching before and after practices.

[Anonymous]

Take her to a manual physical therapist, one who can diagnose and treat the problem. A manual therapist will spend the entire appt with her (every appt), and not set her up with a hotpack and then random gym equipment on her own

[Anonymous]

This may be something she will have to bear with.

[Anonymous]

She seems very young for a chronic issue like this. I would find a DPT (doctor of physical therapy), not an aide or a tech, and have them work with her. I tend to agree that an initial injury may not have healed fully, but in addition to getting a diagnosis the DPT can also help to give her things to do at home, or before training sessions or games. To get a doctorate, they have a three year (year round) program and have to pass boards to get their licenses and then have to do continuing ed every year. They may choose to focus on a specific area of the body too, or not, but see what different practices say about their doctors and their personal areas of expertise. There are pediatric PTs as well and given her age it might be worth looking for one. Good luck! We went through this with a shoulder issue with my GK son when he was younger. It’s very frustrating for the kids.

[Anonymous]

Does she play other sports? Lower back problems are often compensated for in the hamstrings. Pars (stress) fracture in particular can show up as tight hamstrings. Definitely see a doctor, don’t wait on figuring this out.

[Anonymous]

See a doctor. She probably needs complete rest, or waaay more than you think she does. Better to take care of it now instead of causing permanent injury. Aside from general muscle soreness/contact injury players shouldn't be playing or practicing with any pain.

[Anonymous]

See a doctor! 2 years of chronic pain for a u12 is crazy. Sounds like an old injury that has never got a chance to heal right. My guess is you'll be referred to Ortho or a PT (or both!). Would highly recommend some rest before the spring.

[Anonymous]

I recommend that you do what the PP suggests. It would help if you enrolled her in either yoga or pilates. It was helpful to one of the ladies I coach in track who had similar issues.

[Anonymous]

She could have a larger hamstring tear. While there is no treatment except rest and physical therapy, it's still good to know. An Orthopedics can order you an MRI to diagnose.

[Anonymous]

My daughter pulled a hamstring. She rested for 3 weeks no practice or game of any sports. Attended PT 1-2 per week to stretch it out and heal the issue and overtime works her way back to the practice then game.

She started to come back to practice after 3 week and started light and didn’t play game until week 5.

On top of PT, she rolled every day then and now 2-3/ week still to prevent reinjuring as best as possible.

[Anonymous]

My u14 injury that presented as a hamstring was actually a fractured disc. Get it checked out now. She was sidelined and full back brace for 6 months with 3x a week PT plus swimming in the interim