Hamstring training Myths for Runners

Every muscle, tendon and ligament in your body plays an important part in how your body functions and moves.  The hamstring however, in my experience, is the most misunderstood muscle in the whole body. 

To me it determines the very skill in how anyone moves.  A dysfunctional hamstring will put the whole body out of balance.  It will be inviting injury, not only upon itself (like experienced in so many football players) but is setting up other potential common injury areas to falter to.

The hamstring is made up of powerful muscles and tendons, which make up a major muscle group that influence the function of the pelvis and more importantly the body’s movement pattern.  Your hamstring is your work horse in movement.  It also has a very close relationship with the adductors, another group of muscles and tendons that have significant control over the stabilisation of the pelvis amongst other roles.

Is it the hamstrings fault? No of course not.  They are dealing with the movement pattern that is presented to them, like every other muscle, tendon and ligament in your body.  Everything is trying to do the very best for you.  This is why movement skill, like running technique is the hierarchy to any training schedule.

Our body’s have a true alignment.  We call it posture.  This posture constantly changes to create the most efficient posture (shape) to deal with the motion, the space and environment we travel upon.  It is our bones and joints that allow a lever system to be applied to be able to utilise gravity, ground reaction forces that produces momentum.  Our mass determines the coordination, reaction, force and velocity with which our muscles, tendons and ligaments need to work at to keep us in the most efficient balanced position to control our movement.  When we talk about biomechanics this is what we are constantly assessing for any given movement/activity.

The video I posted ‘Hamstring training myths for running’ was to give you a visualisation on two different movements that the hamstring has to deal with.  One is used as common strengthening exercise used in performance training which is utilising the bend pattern.  The other a running heel to hip pull exercise which utilises correct running biomechanics.

With in a minute of running with good cadence you pull one foot from the ground 90 – 105 times depending on your speed.  I don’t think I use the bend pattern up to 90 times in one day of my daily life.  Maybe if I am gardening or cleaning the house I use it but no way near to the extent of the running cadence.  In all my activities it is hard to grasp where I do utilise this bend pattern, may be in gymnastics a little.

My point is the body was designed to perform being up right not bent at the hips.  Evolution shows us the body was designed around running and therefore the hamstring’s most vital role is the force and velocity needed to deal with the pull of the heel to hip action and momentum forces.

In my experience by learning how the hamstring truly functions, how it creates balance to all movement and how to train to strengthen it properly; is the key to all common injuries and the skill of movement.

(ITB Syndrome, Lower back pain, Knee pain, Achilles tendinosis, plantar fasciitis)

With this early learning of how to utilise the hamstring; movement and running efficiency increase, hamstring injuries are a thing of the past, which starts the healing process of the rest of the body and performance will sore.

This is why I say ‘To walk well you have to know how to run well.  To sprint well you have to know how to run well.  To run well you have to know how to move and jump well.”

Follow us for more articles like how for the triathlete everything pivots on the development of the hamstring.

About the author

Rollo Mahon has an academic background in Sports Therapy.  His academic journey has led him through various athlete performance accreditations where he has specialised in the science and biomechanics of barefoot running.  His search has been to find the solution to injury free biomechanics and therefore better performance which has been cemented by the science of barefoot running.