When Stretching Isn’t the Answer: Chiropractic Adjustment for Hamstring Tightness

If you’ve ever gone for a run or a workout without stretching first, you can probably remember the feeling of your leg muscles tightening and being sore the next day. Hamstring tightness, in particular, is a common problem for many people. Consistent tightness in the back of the legs is not only uncomfortable but can also make exercising extremely difficult.

However, many people stretch every day to relieve hamstring tension, only to see no results. While this can be frustrating, it likely indicates that the problem does not lie in your muscle’s length. Instead, there may be another underlying problem that needs to be identified and addressed.

Ideal Spine works with chiropractors to learn about Chiropractic BioPhysics (CBP), a chiropractic approach that diagnoses and treats the root of your pain, not just the symptom, with chiropractic adjustment. If you are frustrated by hamstring tension, make an appointment with a chiropractor to get help identifying the true issue.

Potential causes of hamstring tightness

There are a few different problems that may be occurring in your hamstrings. Although stretching won’t do much to solve these problems, chiropractic adjustment may be able to help.

Muscle compensation

One possible cause of your hamstring tightness has less to do with your hamstrings and more to do with other related muscles in your body. Muscles that typically stabilize and facilitate movement for more active muscles like hamstrings may be too weak and are not functioning properly. Thus, the active muscles may be working harder to compensate for the others’ weakness.

In order to alleviate the tension in your hamstrings, you’ll want to do exercises to activate those stabilizing muscles, so they grow strong and take some pressure off your hamstrings. Sometimes these weaknesses are caused by misalignments in your spine, which pull at the body unnaturally. A chiropractic adjustment on your spine may help restore balance and stability to your entire body.

Pelvic tilt

An anterior pelvic tilt might also be the cause of your tight hamstrings. Poor posture and a lack of exercise can allow the pelvis to shift forward slightly, and, because your muscles are complexly connected, the tilting of the pelvis might be pulling on your hamstrings.

In order to rectify the tilt in your pelvis, exercise is highly recommended, as well as a chiropractic manipulation to fix any spinal shifting the tilt may have caused.

Sciatic nerve irritation

Another problem is actually not due to tightness in the muscle at all – just the feeling of it! Nerve irritation sometimes feels a lot like tightness in the muscles, but it has a drastically different cause. Your sciatic nerve runs down the back of the leg and can make your hamstring appear to be tight. If this is the issue, stretching your hamstring may actually make this problem worse by irritating the sciatic nerve even more, causing inflammation.

There is the possibility that the sciatic nerve is being irritated by an issue in your spine. A vertebral disc may be bulging or has herniated, inflaming the nerve root. Or, perhaps a bone spur or inflamed joint is impinging on the space called the foramen that the nerve root exists, compressing it. A series of chiropractic adjustments may be able to relieve tension being placed on the sciatic nerve and allow it to transmit signals without interruptions once again.

If you’re perplexed by the consistent tightness in your hamstrings, you should visit a chiropractor and have them pinpoint the exact root of your discomfort. Contact Ideal Spine to find a CBP trained chiropractor near you today.

Chiropractic BioPhysics® corrective care trained Chiropractors are located throughout the United States and in several international locations. CBP providers have helped thousands of people throughout the world realign their spine back to health, and eliminate a source of chronic back pain, chronic neck pain, chronic headaches and migraines, fibromyalgia, and a wide range of other health conditions. If you are serious about your health and the health of your loved ones, contact a CBP trained provider today to see if you qualify for care. The exam and consultation are often FREE. See www.CBPpatient.com for providers in your area.