Hi,
I believe I injured my left hamstring sometime in mid-August. I am not sure what specific movement injured it because I never felt a sharp pain but when I woke up the next morning my left hip locked up and I had trouble walking for a few days. I let it rest for a while and it eventual loosened back up. After a week I felt like I could start using it again. I felt no pain while resistance training with the muscle, including hamstring curls, deadlifts, and squats but I would end up feeling pain in my left hamstring if I was standing for an extended period of time or sometimes while walking. The pain is most common if I had been sitting for an extended period of time before standing or walking. Since I didn’t get pain while lifting I continued with my normal routine, hoping the pain while walking or standing would go away with time. I did have my general care doctor take a look at it but he didn’t find any specific point on my leg that was sensitive to pressure and said he thought it would eventually go away on its own.
A month ago I had a deadlift workout that felt fine during the session, but my left hip locked up again later in the day and I was walking with a heavy limp. The pain got worse for the next few days and I ended up having a shooting pain down my left leg for the majority of the day, even when I was lying down and would wake me up at night. I stopped doing any exercise for two weeks to try and let it heal properly this time, and it did start feeling much better. I then slowly reintroduced exercises at low intensities to see if anything specifically caused pain but had no trouble. I have gotten back to the intensities I was using before but I am starting to notice my left hamstring hurting again while standing for an extended period of time. I am concerned that I am just going to end up re injuring it again but I also don’t want to stop exercising if I don’t have too.
Any guidance on how I should best rehab this injury would be greatly appreciated. Also I should mention that when I swing my left leg up to the right my hip will always “crack”. There is no pain when I do this and if my hamstring is hurting I can get some perceived relief by doing it, but when I swing my other leg the same way there is no cracking at all so I think it has to do with the injury.
Thank you,
Conor