Stand up from your chair, put your feet together, and bend forward touching your toes while keeping your knees straight. Did you reach? If you feel the pull in through the back of your legs then you have tight hamstrings. Why are they tight? Due to the fact that people sit most of the day, their glutei (butt) muscles become inhibited and weak. The hamstrings must then take over the primary role of those glutei muscles (hip extension and posterior pelvic tilt). Your hamstrings further tighten to protect you from vulnerability at the knee, hip, pelvis, and low back when the glutei muscles are no longer firing correctly. So what can you do about this? Foam rolling and stretching is a great way to loosen up the hamstrings to help alleviate the tension in through the back of the legs. At New Haven Chiropractic and Sports Rehabilitation we take it a step further by not only loosening the hamstrings but strengthen the glutei muscles to ensure the body is functioning correctly and decreasing the chances of the tight hamstrings coming back in the future!
