It looks like Los Angeles Dodgers All-Star outfielder Matt Kemp is headed back to the Disable List with a right hamstring injury this year (last year he injured his left hamstring and missed 51 days). Of the 189 players currently on the MLB DL, 19 are for hamstring injuries, greater than 10%. A study published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine in 2011 noted that hamstring injuries comprised 13.5% of injuries for position players and 8% overall.
So why all the hamstring injuries in baseball? Traditional thinking had blamed tightness, poor warm-up and poor conditioning of the posterior chain of the body (i.e., hamstrings, gluteals, piriformis). However current thinking takes it a step further. Tightness and poor warm-up cannot be overcome with static stretching (like reach-and-hold type of stretching). Only dynamic stretching (flexibility through movement) will condition the muscles to handle the sudden start and stop movements of baseball. Also, single line strengthening, such as hamstring curls and squats, do not adequately prepare the muscles for the twisting/turning/cutting/pivoting movements that frequently cause injury during sports. Therefore, diagonal and multi-directional strengthening is needed to condition the muscles to handle these complex movements. These contemporary approaches are already being incorporated into MLB conditioning programs, and we hope they will result in a decrease in hamstring injuries.
Have you ever had a hamstring injury? What did it take for you to get better?
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