Hamstring injuries are the most common injuries in professional football. A strain or tear is a major problem for top-class players, but amateur players can also suffer hamstring related problems. According to FourFourTwo, hamstring injuries are guilty of being 12% of all professional football injuries.
How many matches do players miss due to hamstring injuries? Each professional club, on average, loses players for a combined 16 fixtures. That is a lot of football that players miss throughout the year.
Hamstrings are the muscle that helps to bend the knee. The muscle also extends the hip. The hamstring enables players to run, walk, and kick a football. Throughout a match and training session, the hamstring takes an immense amount of pressure and undergoes stress during a match. Due to the pressure and strain hamstrings undergo during matches it means a pull, strain, or tear is possible.
Hamstring injuries can be caused by fast or slow movements. Therefore, it doesn’t matter how fast or slow you are when running. In fact, sudden movements can be the culprit of hamstring injuries.
There are three types of hamstring injuries and they are classed from Grade 1 to Grade 3.
Grade 1 – Mild to medium muscle strain or pull.
Grade 2 – Medium to Moderate muscle strain or pull. Movement is limited due to pain.
Grade 3 – Severe muscle strain or pull. The muscle fibres are torn or possibly ruptured. Players have severe pain and very little movement.
The recovery time for a hamstring injury depends on the grade of the injury. A Grade 1 injury could take up to two weeks to heal. A Grade 2 injury could take double the healing time while a Grade 3 may need eight weeks to fully heal.
What are some factors that cause hamstring injuries?
- Lack of warming up before playing
- Muscle weakness or imbalance
- Poor biomechanics
- Ethnicity
- Age
- Poor or a lack of flexibility
- Fatigue
- Overstretching
- Slide tackles
- High kicks