Have you always had tight hamstrings? My situation is a little different, but i will share my experience with you, for what it is worth. I have sciatic pain due to a back injury, so that is different. However, if it is a tight hamstring that is the root you can try some of the exercises my physical therapist has me doing to increase flexibility in my hamstrings. You start out lieing on your back with both legs straight. Lift one leg straight up and use both hands to hold it behind the knee. Keep your leg straight and then flex your foot up and down, as if you were on your tip toes to bringing your toes towards your knee. Alternate legs and also the height at which your leg is off the ground. For me about 45% is where it is the tightest. I have had my wife hold my leg just above the ankle at that angle so that i can do the exercises, i have enough scar tissue that it takes a lot of effort to hold my leg straight and move my foot like that. I also do it with my leg bent at an angle. Yours is probably a lot less severe than mine however. It took me a couple of weeks to see a difference, and then still have to keep after it.

You might also want to visit a chiropractor just to make sure that you don't have somthing out of alignment, my problem started out as only a little pain in my lower back.

Yowie! I have basically this same problem and it would hurt like crazy to straighten my leg up in this fashion. I can't extend my right (bad) leg and keep it straight, even bending over and shaving that leg causes pain in the lower butt/upper hamstring area. I wish I had an answer, but I don't. I've had problems with it for 3 years and recently had to take over 5 months off from running to seek physical therapy. No fun. I had a lot of muscle imbalance and it has improved with different exercises, but isn't gone completely.

quote:<HR>Originally posted by retrorocket:
Have you always had tight hamstrings? My situation is a little different, but i will share my experience with you, for what it is worth. I have sciatic pain due to a back injury, so that is different. However, if it is a tight hamstring that is the root you can try some of the exercises my physical therapist has me doing to increase flexibility in my hamstrings. You start out lieing on your back with both legs straight. Lift one leg straight up and use both hands to hold it behind the knee. Keep your leg straight and then flex your foot up and down, as if you were on your tip toes to bringing your toes towards your knee. Alternate legs and also the height at which your leg is off the ground. For me about 45% is where it is the tightest. I have had my wife hold my leg just above the ankle at that angle so that i can do the exercises, i have enough scar tissue that it takes a lot of effort to hold my leg straight and move my foot like that. I also do it with my leg bent at an angle. Yours is probably a lot less severe than mine however. It took me a couple of weeks to see a difference, and then still have to keep after it.

You might also want to visit a chiropractor just to make sure that you don't have somthing out of alignment, my problem started out as only a little pain in my lower back. <HR>

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"It's never too late to be what you might have been."

quote:<HR>Originally posted by runrgrl1:
Yowie! I have basically this same problem and it would hurt like crazy to straighten my leg up in this fashion. I can't extend my right (bad) leg and keep it straight, even bending over and shaving that leg causes pain in the lower butt/upper hamstring area. I wish I had an answer, but I don't. I've had problems with it for 3 years and recently had to take over 5 months off from running to seek physical therapy. No fun. I had a lot of muscle imbalance and it has improved with different exercises, but isn't gone completely.



<HR>

Sounds very familiar, except i don't shave my legs, my wife would probably think that was a little weird. Straightening my leg would take every bit of effort i could manage. My physical therapist said some people get better slowly (like me) and some would feel it "break loose". It is panful to do the exercise, but the therapist said that is what it was going to take. I tried sitting and reaching for my toes, but that left my back unsupported and made the problem worse. I would recommend to anyone who has sciatic pain to not mess around and find out what that individual needs to do to fix it. I spent most of my life not being able to hurt myself, now it seems i can hurt myself just breathing. i recently injured my knee/lower leg due to imbalances/decreased flexibility on my left side. Aussiegal, your problems are likely not that serious, but what i have been through, i would recommend doing a LOT of hamstring streching exercises or at least getting it checked out.

William, that is a very good site you linked to, and that is another exercise that i did. This picture from that site is the closest to what really helped for me.
http://www.spine-health.com/topics/conserv/easyexercise/easyexercise01c.html[/URL" target="_blank">

Only difference was that i "wiggled" my foot up and down which is designed to move the sciatic nerve through it's range of motion.

sorry, had to fix my spelling-again.

http://This message has been edited by retrorocket (edited Dec-06-2006).

Did you get the cortisone shot? I have had three (2 this year and 1 about 2 years ago) they really aren't bad. Takes very little time also. They say it takes several days to feel a difference but i felt it helping out within 1 day, and a significatn difference in a week. I made huge jumps forward in my recovery after the shots, if you haven't done it i really recomend it.
I never heard the nerve flossing term before but it sounds exactly like what they were trying to accomplish with me. The bound up nerve would cause my leg, back and everything else to tighten up to protect what it saw was a threat. It would freak out when i tried to extend my leg to much or over-stride, which sounds a little like what aussiegal has going on. Mine was constant though and very acute, so i think for aussiegal just stretching that hammy will probably make a huge difference..

Sounds like your situation is a little differnt than mine. When i had my first shot a couple of years ago, it didn't work, it was in the wrong spot. They had a choice of 2 spots and the first one was unsuccessful. went back about 3 weeks later and they changed the location, got a very quick reponse (couple of days) and it had a dramatic effect on my recovery.

Aussiegal did we help you? hinder? Hijack your thread? didn't mean to do that last two so hopefully we did help some.

I understand about not being able to extend your leg, i still can't do it, at least not without help. For me they told me as long as you support your back, and don't do any contortions to do it, that i should continue to do it even if it hurt. And yes it does hurt a lot. When i have my wife hold my leg straight for me, and then have her let go, i cannot hold it in that position no matter how hard i try. It slowly bends back to the angle it has decided it wants to be at. It does help though and i am making progress. I have a lot of scar tissue in there and it needs to be broken up. I don't recommend doing anything that hurts though unless you have talked to a MD, chiro, or physical therapist first.

Aussiegal, the more i read from you the more i am convinced you need to do somthing about it before it progresses any farther. I am starting to have trouble with me knee as a result of running with the tightness on one side. I would hate to see anyone end up where i am at when it could be headed off early. Good luck and keep the rest of us "pain in the rears" informed on your progress.