Dammit! I’ve just pulled a muscle!

Noooo!!! 😫😫😫😫 

It’s a heart-breaking feeling; the tearing, the twang, the complete seizing up of a strained muscle. This usually happens when you are either not warmed up yet, or fatigued towards the end of an event or game. If it’s your hamstring you were probably sprinting, your groin and you were probably lunging to the side or kicking, your calf and you were probably trying to take off quickly.  

So, what to do? 

One of the best ways to manage the disappointment and frustration of missing out on the next event or game is knowing there is a lot you can do the speed up the recovery.  

The old acronym RICE, and it’s variations have been superseded a few times now, and it’s hard to keep up with the new acronym. But, the principles of how to recover from a muscle injury haven’t really changed. Be aware, the time frames for each period overlap and vary depending on the injury severity.  

The first thing to do is to prevent further injury (rest or protect the injury), the injury needs to go through it’s inflammatory stage and not be further aggravated. This could last from a day to a week depending on the severity of your injury. In this period, you will have pain and inflammation. The inflammation brings all the healing and repairing nutrients to the area, unfortunately also some pain, which is your reminder not to use the muscle at the moment. If you are resting adequately, you shouldn’t have uncontrollable pain. If you’re constantly reaching for an ice pack, either you’ve done something more than a muscle tear, or you are doing too much. Think of the footballer you see on the Monday news on crutches, but back on the field the next weekend, this is professional level rest, allowing the inflammatory phase to happen with zero further aggravation.  

Then you want to progressively build the muscle strength, endurance, and power back to a performance level. Note, not a pain free level, a performance level, otherwise you’re a sitting duck for a recurrent injury. At this stage (maybe day two, five, ten), you’re starting to walk a bit more freely and can start to do daily activities without compensations. The muscle’s capacity has started to increase, meaning you can start to work specifically on the injured muscle. We want to build strength, endurance, and power back into the muscle, which takes time. You will likely need to start with things that are very easy for this muscle (hint: keep the muscle short); then gradually increase the challenge in terms of muscle length, external load, dosage (reps/sets), speed, and complexity. There are lots of factors to consider, which is why recovering to a high level of performance should be guided by a physio. This phase could take 1-3 months to build to a level required to limit the risk of re-injury and allow you to perform at a high level.  

As you build up the injured muscle, you should be maintaining the strength of your other muscles and maintaining your fitness. There will always be something you can do early on to keep strong. For example, some hip flexor strains only hurt when the leg moves back behind the body in running, so stair runs can be possible. Hamstring tears can often do hill running very early, and calf strains are usually completely fine with squats, deadlifts, lunges. This is where your physio can guide you so your uninjured muscles don’t go backwards. This is also an opportunity to address other weakness from old injuries, if it’s pre-season then you can continue to build your cardiorespiratory fitness.

If you would like guidance on how to make the most of your injury break, give us a call 🙂