Are Your Hamstrings Always Tight?

Are your hamstrings tight and they just feel like no matter what you do they won’t lengthen? You’ve tried stretching over and over and it doesn’t make any difference? They loosen up just to tighten back up again after stretching? If this is you, more than likely here is why:

The brain and spinal cord are ultimately in control of all of our muscles. They tell them when to fire, relax, and for how long. Even though you may not realize it, your hamstrings may be told by your brain not to relax even though you want them to. It may not be that they are short, but rather your brain doesn’t trust the body enough to allow the hamstrings to relax and lengthen. Often times this is a sign of an instability in another area of the body. This phenomenon happens in multiple areas of the body. 

Try this: 

Are you able to stand on one leg with your arms to your side resting quietly and the legs not touching one another for 10 seconds with no movement? Can you do it with your eyes closed and minimal movement? If not, then your mind may be using your hamstrings as stabilizing muscles because if it didn’t then your balance would be jeopardized in day-to-day activities. Essentially, the brain is saying the hamstrings need to remain active and tight so that you don’t put yourself in a bad position and get injured. They are being used to stabilize you because others that should be, aren’t. 

I have seen this fact in multiple patients who present with hamstring tightness. Once we retrain neuromuscular control and stabilization, the hamstrings relax and suddenly lengthen. It’s not that they are short, it’s that the mind doesn’t trust them to relax because if they do injury risk goes up. 

If your balance is poor and you can’t hold a single leg stance with your arms held quietly to your sides then work on improving this using the exercise in the video below. 

In order to perform this properly it requires adequate ankle, knee, and hip mobility/stability and some core stabilization. Any, or all of the four areas can be responsible for "tight" hamstrings. A trained health professional can assess which areas need to improve and cater the best program for you going forward. Once these areas are working optimally, suddenly your brain feels safe enough to relax the hamstrings and they lengthen with minimal stretching, or sometimes no stretching at all.

Here at Traction Pain Relief & Wellness we offer a FREE Body Diagnostic Test. This test allows me (a trained movement specialist) to pinpoint exactly where your problems may be coming from. Usually it's not where you think it would be! If you would like to take advantage of one of our limited Body Diagnostic Test's then just fill out the application here.

Usually it is not strength that is lacking if you can’t balance on one leg. Often times it’s the inability to stabilize. It is a neuromuscular deficiency which needs to be retrained. This doesn’t take weights as much as challenging certain postures to force the muscles to work. However, a lack of mobility at joints can play a role as well. 

Stabilization exercises, increase the mobility where needed and often times this is what will allow the hamstrings to relax. If you have low back pain, knee pain, or hip/buttock pain this is something that must be addressed. 

Note: pain changes the entire system and needs to be removed. If there is pain the body functions entirely different than when there isn’t. Weakness appears, balance get’s worse, and injury to other areas increases. Receive help if you have pain. If you have tight hamstrings and poor single leg balance with no pain anywhere in the body then work on improving your balance and often the hamstrings length will improve.