PPC LAB STORIES
Injury Edition
By Dr. Chad Peters & Precision Performance Concepts
Brady’s Hamstring
Why Recovery and Performance Are More Alike Than You Think
Brady is a high school junior. Fall camp starts in two weeks, and for the first time he has a legitimate chance to earn a varsity spot. Then, during an off-season workout, he feels that all-too-familiar grab high in the back of his thigh. His hamstring.
Unfortunately, I see this story every year.
Whether it’s football, soccer, basketball, baseball, or track, the scenario is almost always the same. An athlete spends months preparing for the season only to have a hamstring strain threaten everything just before it begins.
The good news is that most hamstring strains recover very well.
The bad news is that hamstrings are one of the easiest injuries to re-injure if you don’t respect the recovery process.
The first thing I told Brady wasn’t what exercise to do. It was to spend fifteen minutes understanding the injury itself. Athletes are always in a hurry to get to the exercises, but you’ll make much better decisions if you understand what you’re actually trying to fix.
This write up fits as #2 of a 3 part series – it is probably worth taking a few minutes to read the article, “Understanding Hamstring Injuries.”
Once you understand the injury, then it’s time to get to work.
The Four-Step PPC Hamstring Protocol
The old model of sports medicine was fairly simple.
Stretch what’s tight.
Strengthen what’s weak.
This is still taught in almost every clinic and training room across the world, but I think it’s an over – basic 1990s version of treatment that is far outdated.
Before you strengthen a muscle, you have to make sure your brain can actually find it. If the nervous system isn’t recruiting the muscle correctly, adding more weight isn’t always the answer. That’s why this progression begins with movement, then activation, and finally athletic performance.
In the case of the hamstring, I’d add – way before strengthening – lets deal with the injury and mechanism.
The sequence is simple.
Unlock. Activate Glutes, Activate Hamstrings, Backward Run.
It takes about five minutes, and I believe every athlete should be doing it, not just the ones coming back from injury.
Step One: Unlock
Everything starts at the hip.
The hip is the engine behind nearly every athletic movement. Sprinting, jumping, cutting, accelerating, decelerating, changing direction…they all begin there. If the hip isn’t moving well, the rest of the chain starts compensating, and the hamstring often pays the price.
Forget the little half-hearted circles people do while they’re talking to teammates. They don’t accomplish much.
I want twenty quality repetitions of each movement.
Open the Gates. Close the Gates.
Big movements. Controlled movements. Movements that actually challenge your available range of motion.
The goal isn’t simply to go through the motions. The goal is to convince your body that it can safely handle more mobility. If you’re just checking a box before practice, you’re wasting your time.
Around my clinic we don’t call this stretching or mobility. That’s too boring.
We call it Unlocking Your Body. (this writeup is for the hamstring but there are actually “3 Big engines” that need unlocked for athletes!)
Step Two: Activate the Glute
Now that the joint is moving, it’s time to wake up the engine.
Place your hand on the glute of the leg you’re working. Step backward with that same leg and squeeze your glute as hard as you can. You should actually feel the muscle contract underneath your fingertips. Relax completely and repeat.
Ten to twelve quality repetitions are all you’re looking for.
This isn’t a strengthening exercise. You’re not trying to make the muscle tired.
You’re asking a simple question.
Can I feel the correct muscle firing when I want it to?
That’s the entire purpose of your hand being there.
Your fingertips provide additional sensory input to the brain, making it much easier for your nervous system to recognize and recruit that muscle. It seems almost too simple, but it’s one of the quickest ways I know to improve muscle awareness before athletic activity.
Step Three: Activate the Hamstring
Now move your fingers to the back of your thigh.
Slowly bend your knee just enough to make the hamstring contract underneath your fingertips. Again, don’t worry about resistance. Don’t grab an ankle weight. Don’t hook up a cable machine.
First, prove to yourself that you can activate the muscle.
Ten to twelve quality contractions are enough.
If you can’t consistently feel your hamstring turning on, asking it to produce maximum force during a sprint probably isn’t the best idea.
Strength matters.
Activation comes first.
Step Four: Backward Running
Now it’s time to put everything together.
Backward running has become one of my favorite preparation drills because it naturally encourages athletes to use the entire posterior chain while reducing some of the aggressive loading that comes with forward sprinting.
Keep it simple.
An easy pace is fine.
The minimum effective dose is 100 yards.
That’s enough work to tell your nervous system that it’s time to become athletic again.
If you’re recovering from a hamstring strain, this becomes part of your progression back to sprinting.
If you’re healthy, this becomes one of the easiest ways to prepare for practice or competition.
This Isn’t Just a Rehab Program
One mistake I see all the time is athletes assuming these drills belong only in physical therapy or after an injury.
I couldn’t disagree more.
Brady is doing them because he’s trying to get back on the field. The starting quarterback who has never strained a hamstring should be doing the exact same routine before practice.
One athlete is recovering.
The other is preparing. And preparation is remarkably similar.
Unlocking the hips improves movement.
Activating the glutes and hamstrings improves muscle recruitment.
Backward running prepares the body for acceleration, deceleration, and high-speed movement.
Those are performance qualities, not rehabilitation exercises.
When Is Brady Ready?
One of my least favorite questions in sports medicine is, “Where is your pain on a scale from one to ten?”
Pain is important, I care if you’re hurting, but pain is a poor way to decide whether someone is ready to return to competition.
I’ve seen athletes with very little pain who weren’t ready to sprint.
I’ve seen athletes with some discomfort who could perform every movement they needed safely.
Pain is only one piece of the puzzle.
That’s why I rely on a structured Return-to-Play progression instead of asking athletes to guess.
Read the PPC Return-to-Play Protocol before making your decision. (Link)
A Final Thought
The internet loves shortcuts. Professional sports loves systems.
My goal isn’t to give you another hamstring exercise.
It’s to change the way you think about injuries.
The same preparation that helps Brady recover is the preparation that helps healthy athletes stay healthy and perform at a higher level.
That’s why I don’t look at these as rehab exercises.
I look at them as preparation. Function, Evolution of athletic performance metrics.
Because in nearly every sport, the hip is the engine. When the hips move well, the glutes fire when they’re supposed to, and the hamstrings are ready to contribute, athletes run faster, accelerate harder, decelerate more efficiently, and dramatically improve their chances of staying on the field.
Five minutes of intentional preparation will almost always outperform five minutes of random stretching and an hour of rehab.
And that’s the entire philosophy behind Precision Performance Concepts.
Unlock. Activate. Activate. Perform.
