Constantly Sore Hamstrings

Pain & Rehab Forum [Moderated]
1

I have pretty much constant soreness in my hamstrings. The severity varies from mildly annoying to seriously affecting my training load capabilities where I have to back off the weight, sometimes significantly, until they feel up to the task again. This has been an ongoing issue for years

I’ve been running BBM templates for 7 or so years. While I’m certainly not perfect, I do genuinely try my best to hit RPE targets. The template I’m running doesn’t really affect it however it is impacted by increases in training intensity and/or volume. I run various programs at various times; BBII, Hypertrophy II, PBII, LISF, etc

My question is - how can I best adjust training to mitigate this issue? Would it be recommended to continuously reduce RPE (staying in the 5-6 range) while maintaining volume, or keep RPE as programmed and reduce training volume? I know I can do those in short term until they feel better but I need a long term solution as inevitably the soreness returns relatively quickly

2

Hi there – sorry to hear about this frustrating issue. Rather than proposing generalized adjustments to intensity or volume, I’m more curious which particular lifts/activities you’ve noted tend to exacerbate it the most? Those would be where my initial modifications would start.

3

Thanks Austin.

DL/SLDL/RDL are the main agitators followed closely by squat and squat variants.

4

That makes sense.

I would start by: 1) taking a break from SLDLs, 2) reducing the intensity & RPE targets for RDLs, and 3) consider experimenting with sumo deadlifting as your primary deadlift variant for a period of time.

Squats & squat variants should not be causing significant hamstring soreness, so would consider submitting a form check via the website to get some input on that.