The Hammy is More Than Thanksgiving Dinner
- bsakamoto31
- Nov 20, 2023
- 2 min read
Lionel Messi recently extended his lead of most Ballon d’Or Trophies when he took home his
record setting 8th trophy. Messi has been playing for Inter Miami the past few months and has created a surge in soccer (ie football to the rest of the world) popularity in America. He almost singlehandedly brought Miami’s team from the bottom of the standings to making it to the playoffs. However, an undisclosed injury prevented him from playing in several games toward the home stretch. Some speculate he re-aggravated scar tissue from a previous hamstring injury ( espn.com )
The hamstring is a top 5 largest muscle in the human body. It is located in the posterior (back)
aspect of the thigh and connects the hip to the knee. It is made up of 3 main “muscle bodies”:
Biceps femoralis - located on the lateral (outside part) side. It functions to flex your knee, rotate lower leg when knee is bent and extend thigh from hip
Semimembranosus - located on medial (inside part) side. It functions to flex your knee, extend thigh from hip, and medially rotate lower leg from hip
Semitendinosus - located between femoral and semimembranosus. Its functions are same as the semimembranosus.
Injuring or tearing the hamstring muscles are usually encountered in sports that involve sprinting as well as quick start stop movements like in soccer, basketball, football and track.
Risk factors besides playing these sports are: increasing age (older than 40), inadequate
stretching and warm ups, tight hamstring, and previous hamstring injury (?Messi). There are 3
levels of hamstring injury.
GRADE 1 - muscle is overstretched but not torn
GRADE 2 - partial tear in muscles
GRADE 3 - muscle completely torn away from tendon or bone (severe pain). if piece of bone is
pulled away with muscle its called an avulsion.
Symptoms of a hamstring tear includes hearing a pop in muscle, pain in back of the thigh,
bruising in back of thigh, swelling, weakness, and inability to put weight on leg. ( orthoinfo.com ) Diagnosis involves the standard H and P, along with imaging modalities like X-ray and MRI.
Typically, hamstring injury treatment is conservative using RICE (rest/ice/compression/elevation) and physical therapy when able. Surgery is uncommon but basically involves putting torn muscle back into place using anchors to reattach to its bone insertion point. PRP (Platelet rich plasma) is also being used to aid in both conservative and surgical treatment options. In general hamstring injuries can take 1-2 months to recover.
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