Long-Term Effects of a Pulled Hamstring

Individuals who participate in sports that require sudden spurts of running, such as soccer and basketball, often pull their hamstrings. Your hamstrings consist of three muscles: biceps femoris, semitendinosus and semimembranosus.

Definition

• A hamstring pull, another term for a hamstring strain, is an injury to the hamstring. Any of the muscles can be involved. As aidyourhamstring.com points out: "A hamstring injury is any injury to one of the three different hamstring muscles in the back of the thigh."

Location

• While the pull can occur anywhere in the hamstrings, pulls tend to appear at the sides. According to eMedicine.com, injuries to the hamstring muscles primarily occur proximally and laterally, and they usually involve the biceps femoris.

Significance

• You must do everything possible to heal your pulled hamstring as soon as possible. Risk of injury is great. Continually using your hamstring muscles while injured will lead to a worse injury.

Complications

• Returning to your sport too early can have serious long-term effects, such as calcification of the hamstrings and chronic hamstring pain. Scar formation may impinge the sciatic nerve, resulting in hamstring syndrome.

Expectations

• Your life will return to normal when you have let your hamstring pull heal properly and completely. According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, most people who injure their hamstrings will recover full function after completing a rehabilitation plan.