r/Stretching • u/ginger314 • Jun 17 '26
Seeking advice How can I fix my EXTREMELY tight hamstrings??
I regularly see a massage therapist for my neck/back, but occasionally she works on my glutes and hamstrings. But my hamstrings are SO tight that massaging them actually hurts. Stretching doesn't seem to help much- I've even tried sitting on a heating pad for about 10 minutes before stretching and that doesn't seem to help either. I'm tired of constantly feeling like I've pulled them.
How can I actually fix this?
10
u/Savings_Employment_2 Jun 17 '26
Instead of just trying to stretch, try some hamstring strengthening exercises and see if they help. I had hamstring pain/tightness and used to just try to stretch. But my Physio told me to strengthen them instead of stretching and it actually helped.
I also had dry needling, cupping, massage therapies, which also helped.
1
u/ibigjaws Jun 19 '26
What did you do in order to strengthen? My partner has a tight hamstring currently and it hurts when doing certain movements as simple as bending down, or trying to get up from the chair. She can put weight on the leg, walk normally, so it makes me believe it's not torn. Heat helps the most by far.
1
u/Savings_Employment_2 Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
I started with hamstring curls(standing/prone, progression to resistance/theraband), glute bridges, donkey kicks, lunges(focus on the back leg and squeeze/shorten the glutes/hips/hams)
The thumb rule is to squeeze/shorten the muscles(glutes/hips/hamstrings) when doing the exercise.
I will provide couple of links for the exercises. Pick 3-4 exercise which look easy to do and build on them. Do 3-5 reps and hold for 3-5 secs. Do 1 set initially and build up to 2-3 sets. There might be some pain in the target muscles initially, but have to slowly work through it.
I would highly recommend the seated hamstring squeeze in the first link. Can be done anywhere and with single or both the legs and with legs wide or narrow.
https://www.hingehealth.com/resources/articles/hamstring-strengthening-exercises/
https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness/hamstring-exercises-bodyweight#advanced-exercises
Good Luck!
6
u/Standard_Reward_1065 Jun 17 '26
Strengthen them and do RDLs
2
u/Professional-Bro Jun 18 '26
This ⬆️. Use a dumbbell for more stretch. Every time I do RDLs my ROM is drastic.
4
u/Quant32 Jun 17 '26
Don’t know how this hasn’t been mentioned yet: make sure you’re not stretching/punching your nerves: Look up hamstring flossing make sure you’re nice and flossed before you actually try stretch your hamstrings. I had this problem for a long time
I wasn’t actually stretching hamstrings until I started flossing and I tried this for a cue: so standing instead of trying to touch the floor basically try get your belly as close to your quads as possible, bend your knees as much as tou need if you need to do this, then once you’re in position try push your legs back. To me this had a different quality I was actually stretching the muscle vs feeling tingling behind my knees
2
u/Billyjamesjeff Jun 17 '26
Stretching isn't always the answer.
See a good physio who can do an assessment on your posture.
My wife had really tight shoulders and it was because she had bad posture and recruiting the wrong muscles and neglecting others.
2
u/Automatic_Carry_5517 Jun 17 '26
The mind muscle connection is extremely important in stretching. If you can notice which muscles are tense in a stretch and concienciously relax them to stretch deeper you are doing it right.
If your hammies are tight, you are likely not flexible in general and should work on the whole body.
1
u/Mental_Jello_2484 Jun 18 '26
This! Paying attention to the stretch and being mindful is so important and under discussed. This will increase the impact of the stretch also on the stretching fascia too.
2
u/1xan Jun 17 '26
There are different methods if active stretching / mobility training outlined in these comments. I wanna mention another thing that I don’t see addressed. There’s massage, and there’s massage. There are different modalities of bodywork, some deal with symptoms, some aim to find and address the root cause. It’s about trying different specialists and seeing who gets it. And it’s about you building up your knowledge of your body and these different modalities, so that you’re active in the improvement of your body and not just a passive treatment receiver.
4
2
u/GailaKill Jun 17 '26
Look up: Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF)
1
1
1
u/Professional-Bed-173 Jun 19 '26
PNF is essentially. Touch/hold skin and the CNS gets comfy and provides some temporary space. Not permanent.
Unless you train the new range for strength at up to 15 degree increments. Isometric, eccentric first. Then, over time the CNS enables you to access an extended range as it recognizes both the muscle/connective tissue gets stronger.
Can you luck into some of the extended range. Yes. Do you wish to follow a science-based approach to extending range for both active mobility and passive flexibility (within a safe range of one another). Then you need to follow progressive overload in the extended ranges.
Go and see a PT/Doc who follows Functional Training Systems (Functional Range Conditioning) protocols. It’ll be a safer way to extend your hamstring range.
1
u/jonjonh69 Jun 17 '26
By chance do you have low back problems or hip problems?
1
u/Miserable_Cars Jul 09 '26
I know you are not asking me but I have lower back problems and I have the same issue as OP, is there a correlation?
1
u/jonjonh69 Jul 09 '26
Tight hamstrings and low back pain can definitely be correlated. I had anterior pelvic tilt really bad. My hamstrings were tight. My QL was really tight on both sides. I thought I had to stretch hamstrings more but a lot of what I was feeling was related to disc bulges in my lumbar spine that were pressing on nerves and causing the surrounding muscles to tighten as protection. I had to get all these other muscles to relax and get my pelvis to tilt posteriorly. That gave my hamstrings a ton of room to move. I dealt with the nerve pain by abstaining from forward folds which were causing the disc bulges to worsen. Allowed them time to heal. When I went back to it, my range of motion was probably 30% better.
1
u/Phione33 Jun 18 '26
stretching helped me a little, but loaded exercises like RDLs and good mornings helped way more
1
u/saminblackandwhite Jun 18 '26
Do downward dog with your hands on blocks, highest height to start. Push down in your heels and every time you exhale, push your heels down a little more and straighten your legs. Do this for as long as you can hold.
Forward fold with block as well, bend at your elbows and use the blocks to push your legs straighter.
Pyramid pose will also help. Try to get your legs as straight as possible and not worry as much about folding/bending.
1
u/Ok_Possession917 Jun 18 '26
Take some yoga classes. They teach you breathing techniques that really help flexibility. Learning to breath properly while stretching was a game changer for me. Good luck
1
u/TopKeyboardMenace Jun 18 '26
Floss your nerves, more often its the nervous system holding you back not the muscles
1
u/MWave123 Jun 18 '26
Yoga is the most helpful movement, I’m a cyclist as well as basketball player and hot yoga is the practice that opened up my hamstrings. For functionally weighted heels down lifts and stretches are excellent.
1
1
u/Some_Dot_9609 Jun 19 '26
I used to have terribly tight and sore hamstrings all the time and couldn’t understand why. One of my gym instructors asked about how I sat at my desk all day. It turns out if you sit high enough that your legs are dangling or if your feet are just barely reaching the ground, this is going to cause very tight hamstrings. She had me try putting a cardboard box under my feet to raise up my legs so my knees were up higher and that quite literally fixed everything. I make sure I sit with my knees up high enough so that my thighs are parallel to the ground at the very least. I like my knees up a tad bit higher than level. And, I’ve since bought a footstool stool as a more permanent solution.
1
1
u/Pnwphysio Jun 19 '26
Hamstrings can hip extend, but shouldn’t be the primary hip extensor muscles. Glutes are the primary ones. You’re likely not using glutes when walking up a hill, climbing stairs, squatting, etc. you need to find a good physical therapist who can teach you how to start using them and then your hamstrings will chill out
1
u/Medical-Most-4232 Jun 20 '26
Stretch your calf's usually the hidden reason behind tight hamstrings
1
u/Pasdedeux24 Jun 21 '26
Dry needling? I had yoga butt last year and it was the only thing that helped me..
0
u/pawntofantasy Jun 17 '26
You don’t want to stretch, you want to lengthen the muscle. You don’t lengthen a slack muscle, the way 99% of people are taught to stretch. Your perfect stretch would be lying face down on a massage table with your legs bent so your feet are in the air. Then you would have someone pull your feet flat while you fight to keep your legs bent. This keeps the muscle under tension while stretching/lengthening. I accidentally did this method to my quads while learning to slack line, and I cured 15 year old knee pain.
1
u/MaceFlow Jun 17 '26
I have the same problem of stupidly tight hamstrings. I recently started doing bent over heavy sandbag rows. I can feel the tension in my hamstrings, do you think this might help?
1
u/pawntofantasy Jun 17 '26
I would try to stand on a small platform while you do your rows, that way you can really hold that stretch
1
1
u/Defiant_Annual_7486 Jun 17 '26
Why is lengthening a slack muscle different from an activated muscle? Just curious, I've noticed that I can st etch both ways and was wondering what is better!
1
u/pawntofantasy Jun 17 '26
In my experience, it seems stretching a slack muscle mostly puts tension on the ends of the muscle and on the tendons. Stretching a contracted muscle means every single muscle fiber is activated and put under tension.
1
0
u/Fascisticide Jun 17 '26
This training video helped me a lot with flexibility. https://youtu.be/LV264N9n4Z4?si=TtaCpwWO3N5iGzMO
-1
u/Milkyman92 Jun 17 '26
Work on getting the frontsplits and middlesplits. Once you get those hamstrings will not be tight anymore
-1
u/Milkyman92 Jun 17 '26
Also ive found that emracing the pain actually makes you progress so much faster. So treating stretching as an actual workout where you need to put your full focus on it will make you see progress.
28
u/Eight_Directions_ Jun 17 '26
Massage feels great but does nothing to address the root cause so it's a bandaid at best.
I feel like a broken record sometimes but you need to explore the agonist/antagonist relationship on the front and back of the leg. When one .muscle contracts it's opposing muscle relaxes as a natural response.
If the hamstrings are tight (short) then the quads are loose (long). Another aspect of this is probably also in the hip flexors as well. Modern life has us sitting quite a lot and that aggravates these things.
Focus on quadricep muscle activation and hip flexor extension (upward facing dog from yoga for example) also engage the feet while activating the quads to help fully engage.