Why your hamstrings aren’t tight!

And why health or fitness ‘professionals” give out the wrong information.

Hamstring tightness (or any type of single muscle tightness) is being thrown around the web as being the way to cure back pain, knee pain, ankle pain etc. If your hamstrings are shortened then lengthening them may be part of process of relieving your pain; however if this muscle is normal length or long then this may add to your dysfunction and long term may cause a small injury to become a large one.
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This common misconception that there is a quick fix for everything is one that is becoming more and more common. Embarrassingly to me this is being led by both health and fitness specialists who give blanket information to everyone to try to boost their social media following to make more money!

Why is this incorrect?

Lets start by addressing the basic principles and then the anatomy.
Basic Principle 1
Our skeleton is moved by a system of muscles, ligaments and fascia. It uses lots and lots of pulleys to do this. This is an example of a simple 2D pulley.
As seen below the load is affected by gravity:

A simple pulley system

​When you pull the rope labelled 'effort' the load moves against gravity.

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Basic anatomy...
I promise to be simple

​​The hamstring group attaches (anchor point) to the back of the pelvis and then travels down the back of the leg and attaches (anchor point) below the knee:

​Often the hamstrings feel “tight” or “short” when in reality the pelvic position is just giving us this illusion as we have moved one of the anchor points away putting that muscle on stretch, as seen below:

NEUTRAL PELVIS
​POSITION (correct)

ANTERIOR PELVIC
TILT (incorrect)

​Front of ​body 

​Back of ​body 

​As mentioned in my rant about posture retraining we know the body adapts to mechanical forces that cause stress to be placed on the body. In this example we have a lengthening force applied on the hamstring and a shortening force applied on the hip flexor and quad complex causing a stress. This will cause adaptation. As seen above you can also notice that the low back (lumbar spine) is then placed in an extended position and a mechanical force is placed upon the spine leading to adaptation.
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Please don’t stretch things that aren’t shortened and if you are unsure please seek a professional’s help that you trust...
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...And If you are not getting change its probably the wrong treatment.

Sean Yates | Physiotherapist | Doctor of Physiotherapy | Bachelor of Exercise Science |
ASCA level 1 | AWF Level 1 coach | Functional Patterns Level 1, 2, 3 | Human Biomechanics Specialist | Dry Needling | Clinical Pilates Level 1, 2, 3 | APA sports Level 1 | Watson Headache Level 1 | IASTM - Smart Tools Instructor | ​