Hamstring Pull

[kitjv]

While practicing my driving technique, I pulled my left hamstring muscle. As a newbie, I am sure that my driving technique is far from smooth & fluid. My suspicion is that the hamstring was pulled while rotating my hips.

Here is where you guys might be able to help me. I am practicing my driving on the grass at a local park. It's seems that as my hips rotate & my weight transfers from my back leg (left) to the front leg (during a backhand throw), my left foot doesn't pivot easily on the grass surface as it might on a cement tee pad. If so, I can see how that can twist the hamstring muscle.

If anyone has experienced this situation, I would appreciate your input how it might avoid this in the future. Thank you so much.

 

[txmxer]

Your left leg doesn't really rotate, your foot should come off the ground as you shift your weight forward.

 

[Monocacy]

Can't help you with form but you use your hamstring when throwing, jump-putting, etc.

I have learned that I need to warm up and stretch my hamstrings before every round. Good luck!

 

[Brychanus]

While practicing my driving technique, I pulled my left hamstring muscle. As a newbie, I am sure that my driving technique is far from smooth & fluid. My suspicion is that the hamstring was pulled while rotating my hips.

Here is where you guys might be able to help me. I am practicing my driving on the grass at a local park. It's seems that as my hips rotate & my weight transfers from my back leg (left) to the front leg (during a backhand throw), my left foot doesn't pivot easily on the grass surface as it might on a cement tee pad. If so, I can see how that can twist the hamstring muscle.

If anyone has experienced this situation, I would appreciate your input how it might avoid this in the future. Thank you so much.

Video form review is the only reliable way to deal with these issues.

But in general, I'm echoing that you do not really want to focus on any rotational motion when you throw. The throw involves rotations, but learn to think of them as an effect rather than a cause. When people say "engage" or "rotate" the hips it is often not clear what they mean, and it's because they don't quite understand how the weight shift should work in the throw.

The weight shift actually functions more like this:

You want your stride to shift laterally toward the target and the rotations are due to your posture and balance swinging back and forward. Notice in this wireframe Dekuscrub just made of GG that all of the motion in his hips is due to the way his legs act on the ground and his hips (or "pelvis" and "heads of femurs" here) naturally move like walking. You do not need to focus on rotating anything when walking. What you perceive as rotation through the hips is due to that lateral stride plus swinging back and forward to throw.

I'm not 100% thrilled with everything I said here, but it might help get some of the ideas across: