*** HELP *** Hamstring injury

[ducados]

Hi All

My son has just turned 11 years old and is a goalkeeper. He plays Sunday league football and has just been taken into part of the advanced training centre with a premier league football club. Next step could be to sign for the academy.

About 6 weeks ago, he suffered a hamstring injury during a match. For the first 3 weeks this was left untreated because we did not know what to do and mistakenly believed that at his age all he needs is to rest it. After we did not seeing any improvement I took him to see a Physio. He has had a few sessions with him and we have been applying heat treatment and stretching at home and after 10 days he seemed fine and the Physio said he was recovered and should focus on returning to full fitness. He continued the stretching exercises and returned to training with his team. This went well on the Thursday, Friday, Saturday morning and afternoon sessions. The pain returned on a small scale during the pre-match warm-up's. He did not play the match and we returned to the physio on Monday, no pain or tightness at this time. He suggested the issue was the warm-up and said he was fine to continue. He played a little tennis on Tuesday and was fine. He went down in pain again 20 minutes into football training yesterday, this time the pain remained and he could still feel pain this morning when he woke up.

We are going back to the Physio again tonight but I am really unsure what to do. Should I take him out of all sports and make him rest until the New Year? Am I overreacting Is this normal and he should just keep going with the exercise but avoid matches or goalkeeping for the next few weeks? Should I take him to a specialist doctor?

He has his debut match for the advanced training centre with the premier league football club next Friday (17th). He is desperate to play if he can.

I would be grateful for any comments or advise.

Many Thanks

[Heidi]

Sounds like he has re-torn the musle. In which case he needs to ICE it and rest for at least 3 days. Then he can start gently stretching it and get some treatment fromt he physio like massage, ultrasound etc.
Was he doing specific hamstring strengthening exercises as part of his rehab? You haven't mentioned this and it should be something he does to prevent an injury happening again.
What to do depends on his progress. But certainly a couple of weeks out of sport would help it to recover without continual stresses.
When he returns he needs to make sure the hamstring is trong and that he has run and sprinted in training etc with no problems, before returning to matches.
Good luck!

[ducados]

Thanks Heidi.

With regards to your question "Was he doing specific hamstring strengthening exercises as part of his rehab?". I am not sure.
He was given specific exercises to do but I do no exactly what they were for.

I think this issue was he was being declared as fit and returning to normal training to soon. I agree, as tough as it is for him, I think he needs a longer recovery period. My problem is I find it very difficult to judge the quality of the treatment and advise being given.

[Heidi]

Strengthening exercises would involve contracting the hamstrings, usually against some form of resistance (maybe a rehab band, or ankle weights etc)? If not then he really needs to be doing stuff like this. Rehab bands are great for hamstring rehab