Hamstring Massage Video

This post is intended to be read before, during, or after watching the hamstring video Balls on Hamstring Massage with Tennis Balls: Do It While You View It.

Recommendations: You may want to warm up your hamstrings before trying this massage, it can be intense. The first time you attempt it, go easy. If your hamstrings are weak or injured try one of the alternative massages described below.

Accessories: You’ll need a chair with a hard seat and two tennis balls.

Objectives of the video: The goal of this massage, as always, is to feel better when you finish than when you started. To achieve that goal you’ll want to identify trigger points, areas of sensitivity, in your hamstrings and release them. It may take more than one session and more than one day. Be persistent. By releasing the latent trigger points that form in your hamstrings you will allow your muscles to regain their full strength and range of motion. That may not be the goal of your massage but it will be the result.

Trigger Point Advisory: Look for trigger points which have been described as points of exquisite tenderness when pressed. When you find one you’ll know it. You may want to stop the video and release it. If you continue with the video make sure you go back and work out the trigger points you discovered.

Alternative massages: Instead of doing the entire massage presented in the video, try applying just one of the five strokes shown at the beginning of the video. Choose the stroke you like best then begin massaging near your knees and work towards your glutes. Or if one leg needs more attention than the other massage it alone and devote all your attention to that leg. Or just put the tennis ball under a tender spot in your hamstrings and place your hand on your quads above the ball and move your hand in small circles applying pressure and massaging the trigger point until it releases.

Hamstring Described: Your hamstrings are made up of three tough muscles, more like thick ropes than strings, that live in the back of your thigh. They extend from your hips and seat to your your knees. They originate at your sit bone and the top of your femur and insert at the tops of your tibia and fibula.

Hamstring’s Purpose: Our hamstrings allow us to perambulate, without them we couldn’t stand, walk, or run, and the first 18 holes of golf would be even more painful than they already are.

Activities: When you bend forward from your hips to touch your toes, it’s your hamstrings that limit your motion and keep your head from hitting the floor. You can feel your hamstrings tightening when you attempt to perform a split. Your hamstrings are the muscles in the back of your legs screaming “STOP!”

Hamstrings and Trigger Points: Think of trigger points as another name for muscle dysfunction. Latent trigger points regularly form in the three muscles making up your hamstrings: biceps femoris, semitendinosus, and semimembraneous. Unless you regularly release these trigger points with massage they will weaken your hamstrings. If unreleased, trigger points accumulate over time and slow your running, shorten your jumping, and eventually make even walking painful. They have the affect of shortening your hamstrings which may be felt as knee or hip pain. You can see their affects on your parents and grandparents when they try to get out of a chair or walk. 


Hamstring Injuries: Hamstrings with accumulated trigger points are more likely to suffer tightness, strains, pulls, and tears. See http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00408

Benefits of Massage:
Massaging your hamstrings regularly will release latent trigger points and make your hamstrings less susceptible to injuries. Massage will result in stronger hamstrings and naturally faster legs.

Chronic Hamstring Problems: If trigger points are not released, over the course of a long life, they can produce severe muscle dysfunction which may be mistaken for arthritis. The weaknesses in elderly legs are often attributed to aging and are accepted as a natural part of the aging process. Most often it’s an accumulation of trigger points that are causing these problems, and as such it is a natural condition of aging that can easily be remedied through massage.

Trigger Point articles you might find helpful:
http://feelbetterfast.blogspot.com/2010/03/trigger-points-are-they-in-you.html
http://feelbetterfast.blogspot.com/2010/03/treating-your-trigger-points.html