Football Hamstring Exercise Information

The hamstring is a group of three major muscles located over your knee, alongside your thigh. Athletes often injure their hamstrings due to inadequate preparation or overuse. Football is no exception. Most football actions--from running to blocking to punting--involve the hamstring. In order to ensure that you don't pull or rupture your hamstrings, condition your hamstrings to maximize elasticity and strength. Stretches, weightlifting and warm-up drills may help your hamstring remain intact throughout the season.

Warming Up

• One of the most important ways to protect your hamstrings is to not rush into practice or a game without warming up. Warming up should begin with a slow jog, jumping jacks or other moderate exercises. The goal of warming up is to get your muscles loose enough to stretch properly and also to acclimate your muscles so that full-speed situations don't result in a shock to your system. When you warm up, continue your warm-up exercises (e.g. a few laps around the football field or low-intensity drills up and down the field) for around 10 minutes.

Stretching

• After you have warmed up, stretch your muscles to increase blood flow to each muscle. As with other muscles, you will want to stretch your hamstring muscles properly. For instance, do not overstretch. Jim Wharton, an exercise physiologist and founder/president of the Wharton Performance conditioning organization, believes that short intense hamstring stretches will prevent sports injuries. One such stretch, outlined by Jonathan Beverly in Running Times Magazine, is known as the "straight leg hamstring" stretch. Although this stretch was designed for runners, it will benefit football players or anyone else who puts strain on their hamstrings.

  To perform this, lie on your back with your non-stretching leg's foot on the ground so that your knee points at the ceiling. Take a rope and make a loop big enough for you to put your stretching leg's foot into. Keep your leg straight and lift it so that the bottom of your foot points at the ceiling. Your quadriceps should lead the lift. Once your leg is straight with the foot pointing at the ceiling, grasp the rope lightly and move up the rope's length as if you were climbing it. Once you feel tension in your hamstring, hold for two seconds and then slowly return to normal position. According to Wharton, other hamstring stretches should stretch the hamstring for a few seconds as your surrounding muscles contract.

Strength Training

• Strength training is a specific method of weightlifting that aims to build muscle strength in the most effective way possible. To perform strength training lifts, you will want to lift the heaviest weight possible. You may wish to work up to this weight so that you don't overextend yourself. If you lift light weights and feel no "burn," your muscles will not grow stronger. According to Edward Snell, a sports medicine specialist at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, trainers too often focus on other muscles, such as the quads, for strength training. However, if you implement weightlifting exercises that result in stronger hamstrings, you are less likely to pull your hamstring while evading a sack (quarterbacks) or during a quick juke on the field (running backs or receivers). Common strength exercises that involve the hamstrings include squats, lunges and leg curls. For more detailed information on how to perform these exercises best, take a look at Georgia State University's fitness page.