Interesting Info on Hamstring Injuries

[RiverDog]

From the Athletic, discussing Cooper Kupp's hamstring injury. In order to keep it relatively short, I've copied and pasted just that which involves hamstrings in general:

First, what is a hamstring strain?

The hamstring is a group of three muscles at the back of your thigh. Straining these muscles basically means forcefully overstretching them. Grade 1 strains don’t include any muscle tearing, but Grades 2 and 3 do. There can also be damage to the tendons.

Because these muscles are large and play a major role in lower body movement (walking, running, jumping), it’s difficult to fully rest them. Additionally, the hamstrings don’t get as much blood flow as other muscles — blood is crucial for the healing process. This is why injured hamstrings can be slow to heal.

Finally, because the healing process is slow, players tend to return before they should. There might not be any more significant pain, but that doesn’t mean the process is complete. Improper healing and inadequate recovery times can lead to setbacks or additional damage to the muscles, which essentially starts the process all over again.

Here’s a quick glossary of those terms for those who are unfamiliar with them:

IRC = Injury Risk Category (three designations: “Low,” “Elevated,” “High”) — the overall likelihood a player will get injured
HPF = Health Performance Factor (Peak, Above Average, Below Average, Poor) — our metric to predict player performance
ORT = Optimal Recovery Time — the amount of time a player needs to fully recover from an injury (not the same as how much time they will actually miss.

And specifically about Kupp, here's what they are predicting as the most likely scenario:

Most Likely Scenario

Our data predicts Kupp is still 28 days away from Optimal Recovery at the time of writing, meaning we expect him to return in Week 3 or 4 depending on how he is able to ramp up his recovery. That being said, his Injury Risk will be High and is likely to remain so through Week 7 or 8.

In this scenario, we predict he returns with limited production initially before gradually getting back to his normal levels around Week 5 or 6. He’s also likely to miss one or two more games as the season goes on. This goes with his High Injury Risk. The hamstring is likely to flare up and the Rams would be wise to shut him down the moment it does, at least for a week. Regardless, he should still have enough runway to finish the season with over 1,000 yards.

Heading into future years, the hamstring should remain an offseason focus to avoid a Julio Jones-esque situation, where the injury never fully goes away. If successful, there isn’t too much concern about his availability in future seasons.

https://theathletic.com/4830272/2023/09 ... scenarios/

As I mentioned some time ago, I have subscribed to the Athletic, so if any of you see an article and can't get past the paywall, I'd be happy to copy and paste it, either here in the forum or in a DM.

[4XPIPS]

Wow thanks RD, now that we have a little more insight on hamstring injuries this brings possible light to Devon Witherspoon's injury. He missed the combine because of his hamstring, and it seems to be nagging him again. Now thanks to you I can see that it does not just heal up right away.

[RiverDog]

Wow thanks RD, now that we have a little more insight on hamstring injuries this brings possible light to Devon Witherspoon's injury. He missed the combine because of his hamstring, and it seems to be nagging him again. Now thanks to you I can see that it does not just heal up right away.

No sweat, I'm glad that someone appreciates it. I found it informative, too, which is why I shared it.

And you're exactly right about how this applies to Witherspoon and his injury.

[NorthHawk]

Thanks RD!
I didn’t know about the restricted blood flow to the Hamstrings nor that there are 3 separate muscles.
That explains how someone could have another hamstring injury on the same leg but not the same muscle.