Chronic Hamstring Fatigue / deep fatigue during DLs??

[Karin Jonczak]

Hey-

I was wondering if anyone had experience with what I can only describe as chronic hamstring fatigue. It only bothers me when I deadlift, and mostly it just seems like it takes me forever to recover from a workout involving deadlifts. Its not acute, but generalized fatigue.

If I spent a long time (like most of the workout) lifting light DLs I finally feel 'ok' by the end of a WOD, but the fatigue I feel just doesn't seem normal. No issues with any other movements (squat, lunge, snatch, etc) but moderate to heavy DLs are just out of the question because my hamstrings feel so god awful. Lately I have had to just drop way down on the DL weights to do WODs that have DLs in them because my hammies feel so awful.

It doesn't seem to get any better with rest (3-5 days off, or no leg stuff).

I have decent hamstring flexibility (it can always be better, buts its not bad), but I am at a loss as to what is going on / happening.

Any ideas?

[Steven Low]

Overworked hammies seems like under-utilized glutes to me.

Do a bunch of glute specific strengthening work.

By any chance have you sprained your ankles a lot or had any other previous injuries? I was reading some studies a while back that showed that sprained ankles reduced EMG activity to glutes

[Karin Jonczak]

Originally Posted by Steven Low

Overworked hammies seems like under-utilized glutes to me.

Do a bunch of glute specific strengthening work.

By any chance have you sprained your ankles a lot or had any other previous injuries? I was reading some studies a while back that showed that sprained ankles reduced EMG activity to glutes

hum... very interesting theory.

1) I feel like an idiot , but how in the world do I work my glutes more? I did discover that pistols leave my *** hurting like, well... they work the glutes Most things CF'rs do seem to hit the hamstrings as well!

2) Why yes I have. R ankle numerous times with the worst injury being a fall while bouldering where I landing straight onto my calcaneus from about 10' on directly in between the crash pads (i.e. onto a rock) over Thanksgiving. Nothing broke, but it was FAT and still somewhat stiff/sore to this day. I have also torn my L hamstring a few times, although it is back to 100% strength and flexibility. Tell me more about this though, please!!

[Karin Jonczak]

and as a side note... the last 4 weeks have left me with a slightly sore lower back. I suspect this is ALL RELATED!!

...Inactive glutes forces your lower back and hamstrings to do more work resulting in less productivity and increased risk of injury....

hum, need to active the glutes and stretch the hammies more!!

[Eric Montgomery]

Glute-ham raises, Romanian deadlifts, and good mornings are good ways to go. Make sure you do them correctly rather than trying to load up a lot of weight....i.e. if you allow your knees to bend any more than a few degrees on RDLs or GMs they stop targeting the glutes. You can also do glute bridges (WFS) with one or both legs. Same deal with these, focus on quality of movement and contracting your glutes, not just extending your hips by any means necessary.

K-Star's mobility WODs have a lot of glute mobilization and activation stuff, just check his site out and search for what you need. Sore lower back is often a sign of poor hamstring mobility so check out what he's got for hamstrings as well.

[Karin Jonczak]

Thanks Eric-

I was definitely going to check out KStar, although I think the lower back is more related to hamstring fatigue vs flexibilty.

Karin

[Donald Lee]

Originally Posted by Eric Montgomery

Glute-ham raises, Romanian deadlifts, and good mornings are good ways to go. Make sure you do them correctly rather than trying to load up a lot of weight....i.e. if you allow your knees to bend any more than a few degrees on RDLs or GMs they stop targeting the glutes.

Actually, knee bend loads up the glutes more, and straight legs loads up the hamstrings more. But, it's easy to cheat and not use the glutes in the RDL on the concentric, but even so, the RDL has a nice eccentric.

[Steven Low]

3 steps

build the neuromuscular connection:

Start with glute sets -- focus on lying down and squeezing just your glutes without as muscle involvement..... sets of 30 with 3-5s squeezes. Preferably get that number up to 50 or more

For any of these exercises use your hand to push into your glute muscles to cue them if you are having a hard time isolating them

Start retraining them in simple movement

Start doing glute bridges, focusing on the same thing contracting and squeezing the glutes through and at the top of the movement for 3-5s hold

Again, high reps

reintroducing into movement

Integrate your knowledge and reactivated glutes into deadlifts and any good hip hinge movement.

I would avoid RDLs, and GMs for abit and just focus on those core movements.... can add these in later if need be

[Karin Jonczak]

Thanks Steve... will start squeezing :-)

[Daniel KL Nguyen]

Hows your progress going?

Fatigue lasting up to 5 days is unusual even if it is technique related or poor motor pattern. Fatigue that lasts this long, and only with heavier dead lifts, added the mild low back pain. I'm considering some form of neural fatigue or entrapment of the sciatic nerve, particularly the branches of L4-S2 which take part in supplying the hamstrings. Usually this is associated with pins and needles, numbness and weakness, but not essential. The most common entrapment point in fit athletes would be the piriformis muscle, try looking up how to assess the length of this muscle and stretches for it. If thats clear, perhaps have a physician assess your low back.

Another thing to consider is hamstring tendinopathy, which generally responds well to eccentric training and anti-inflammatory medications.

Just my 2c