Hamstring tweak

Good day,

This past Sunday I was on my way to the gym and was in a rush to get my work out started. During my first set of the deadlift session I had 135 on the bar and was being pretty explosive with the reps. I then felt a sharp pain in my right hamstring during my third rep. I decided to stop deadlifting and as I was putting away my weights I felt my hamstrings pull (similar to what a hamstring strain feels like). I Decided to immediately stop deadlifting and did some steady state cardio on stationary bike for 20 minutes. 1 year ago I strained both hamstrings severely but have since returned to regular activities without any recurrence (until now).

At night I decided to do some 1 legged single leg deadlifts with no weight to test it out. I was doing air squats as well and could not feel any pain. I continued to do these movements for a couple of days as well without any pain. Things have been feeling very normal and injury free. A couple of days after the tweak I decided to do deadlifts to get back into the swing of things since I had no pain or any reason not to deadlift. I started by doing light 1 leg deadlifts, one leg hip thrusts to once again test the area with no pain. I then proceeded to do some tempo deadlifts (dead stop) 95x12-135x12-225x10-225x10.

I did not experience any pain during these sets and this weight was less than half of what I normally use for my working sets. I was wondering if I should continue as normal and re introduce higher intensities, or should I be more careful and continue to work my way back up. I have not been experiencing pain throughout the week but I am mostly scared that it will actually tear my hamstring if I go heavy again. I took it as a warning.

Should I continue to do light/tempo work or resume higher intensities like usual.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Martin

Nice job working through this! I agree with the steps you’ve taken so far.

I would keep progressing gradually back towards normal, session by session, rather than jumping way up to “normal” weights.

Longer-term, you can introduce some direct hamstring work like a Nordic hamstring curl as well.

Good afternoon Dr. Baraki,

Sounds great, thank you first of all for your quick response. I will continue to gradually introduce things again a bit at a time. I recently switched to SSB squats rather than low bar throughout this week of training going no higher than RPE 6. I Appreciate the positive feedback and reassurance.

I’ll have to figure out a way to do the Nordic hamstring curls on my own. I recently read another post where you suggested those.

By the way I recently saw the video of your 720 deadlift at 194lbs. That is a very impressive feat of strength.

Keep crushing it man!

Regards,

Martin