Many people have a sense of having ‘tight’ hamstrings. This means tightness in the back of the legs, limiting range of movement when bending forward, and contributing to postural problems and back pain.

The hamstrings are a group of three muscles in the back of each thigh. They allow you to bend your knee and pull your leg back as you walk. 

The hamstrings cross over two joints, the back of the knee and the back of the hip. This positioning means that when they are ‘short’ and tight, they can pull your pelvis into a backwards tilt, which then causes a rounding of the shoulders as your body tries to compensate and keep you balanced. As you can imagine, this can lead to back pain, poor posture and even a closed down chest making it harder to breathe! 

‘Shortened’ hamstrings, like this, are tight and inflexible. This happens when they are overused, for example if you walk or run a lot.

However, your tight hamstrings could even be caused by weakness in those muscles! When a muscle is weak, the nervous system may tighten it in order to create stability. 

If you sit down a lot, your hip flexors (the opposing muscles to the hamstrings, which being your leg forward) get very short, and your hamstrings get weak and elongated. The body’s response is to tighten them! So everything feels tight!

For weak, elongated or under-used hamstring muscles, strength training will be beneficial for relieving their tightness… combined with a stretching programme of course! 

As mentioned, hamstrings can become tight when overused and this might be simply because another area of your body is weak, for example, the glutes. 

The gluteus maximus muscle has a similar job to the hamstrings and it is the main hip extensor (bringing your leg back behind you, for example as you walk or run). 

If your glutes are weak, your hamstrings could be doing too much work to bring the leg back, so exercises to strengthen both glutes and hamstrings are a good idea, such as the exercises in Yoga Quickie: Hamstring Strength and Stretch.

The best way to protect your hamstrings is to keep all of your leg muscles strong, flexible and working together, including the glutes and the quadriceps (muscles at the front of the thighs). This is also have the effect of keeping good pelvic alignment, so we can prevent and manage back pain. 

Taking some time to practise just a little bit yoga and Pilates every day! My Yoga Quickie series is perfect for this! 

Yoga Quickie: Hamstring Strength and Stretch contains both yoga and Pilates and is only ten minutes long. 

Do it now, repeat it regularly, and feel the benefits to YOUR hamstrings!