Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

I have been having very tight hamstrings on days with low air humidity (<50% ). Sometimes just due to jumping or sprinting I even get acute pain. I think I loose ROM because whenever I kick forward and high i get the acute sensation in the hamstring / glute insertion. If air humidity raises then the pain is over.

Is there anything I can do? May hydratation have something to do?

Thank you.

What’s the temp? Humidity raises the effective temperature (since the body can’t cool) so it could just be your cooling off very quickly or more quickly than normal.

Temp is arround 20ºC (70F)and I also have had the same problem with lower temperatures.
I was even wearing long and thick sport pants.

I don’t want to hijack the thread but I’ve always had my best times when the weather is cooler. I live in Texas though so of course cool weather to me is about 60 degrees. I feel alot looser and like I’m gliding down the track.

aivala - 02 October 2008 06:58 PM

I have been having very tight hamstrings on days with low air humidity (<50% ). Sometimes just due to jumping or sprinting I even get acute pain. I think I loose ROM because whenever I kick forward and high i get the acute sensation in the hamstring / glute insertion. If air humidity raises then the pain is over.

Is there anything I can do? May hydratation have something to do?

Thank you.

If the humidity was high then it could be a hydration problem because you tend to sweat much more so it probably isn’t that.  What kind of things do you do when you warm up, and do you do any stretching after working out?

johnstrang - 04 October 2008 01:06 PM

aivala - 02 October 2008 06:58 PM

I have been having very tight hamstrings on days with low air humidity (<50% ). Sometimes just due to jumping or sprinting I even get acute pain. I think I loose ROM because whenever I kick forward and high i get the acute sensation in the hamstring / glute insertion. If air humidity raises then the pain is over.

Is there anything I can do? May hydratation have something to do?

Thank you.

If the humidity was high then it could be a hydration problem because you tend to sweat much more so it probably isn’t that.  What kind of things do you do when you warm up, and do you do any stretching after working out?

I now believe that the problem is in the stretching, today pulled my groin and I lack a lot of flexibility in that area.

Have you been doing any flexibility or mobility work?

That has been my Achilles’ heel for a long time, but had already have some minor groin problems, f.e. while sprinting I have sometimes to conciously adduct my right leg because it is moving in a weird manner, I feel it “wobbling” laterally.

Plain old stretching sucks.  Find a better way.  Therapy, foam rolling, MET, PNF, AIS…something…anything but static stretching to relieve “tightness” problems.

mortac8 - 10 October 2008 09:05 PM

Plain old stretching sucks.  Find a better way.  Therapy, foam rolling, MET, PNF, AIS…something…anything but static stretching to relieve “tightness” problems.

Agreed. Highly overrated. The only time I’ve found it to be useful for improving tonus is when used in conjunction with yoga breathing techniques.

I will say that many people just find it relaxing despite the fact that in many cases they may actually be CONTRACTING their muscles when they think they’re stretching them. For this reason, there may be an additional extrinsic value to static stretching (even when not done correctly).

Any updates or resolution on this one. The problem seemed quite unusual and I was curious if you ever found a solution or exact cause of the problem.

Well, I am using thermal tights (the ones used for winter sports like ski) for warm up and during competition when I have to wait a lot between jumps. It boosts my warmup a lot and mantains my legs very wet and extremelly hot all the time. I find these as some kind of the thing used in car racing for mantaining the tires hot all the time while in boxes. It helps a lot in all round mobility in very dry days.

The hamstring problem disappeared completely. I found out that the main problem was focusing on lifting my knees while sprinting. I stopped doing that and almost immediatly the hamstring problems disappeared. Any kind of cue like “feel you have a ribbon tied to your ankles and gluteus”, “lift your knees”, etc., brought me tremendous hamstring discomfort. Switching to something natural, focused on the backwards movement of the ground contacting leg, eliminated all my hammy pains and strains. Low humidity just worsened the problem.
Have you ever heard of something similar happening?

The groin pulled again slightly. Both times it happened due to extension while the foot rolled outwards after a pronation during block starts. Any cues? Strengthten adductors?