It takes a village … to heal a hamstring!

It takes a village … to heal a hamstring!

As many of you know, I am training for a triathlon this summer. It’s my first one, and I’m loving the training for it. To train effectively, I do many different workouts throughout the week that are outside of my normal workout routine. Which also means that I need to take extra care for recovery from those and be extra diligent about stretching when I am done my workout, just as I tell my patients to do.

A few weeks ago, I was running late to take my daughter to dance class after a long workout. I ran out of the gym, figuring that I would stretch while she was in her class. By the time we got there, I had forgotten that I was going to stretch and instead I sat and watched my daughter’s class. Throughout the day, my leg started getting tighter. To try and make up for my lapse, I stretched my leg for the next couple of days and took a rest from the workouts. A few days later, I thought that I was fine and ran 5km. But, that one day of forgetfulness had done damage. Even though I had been diligent about stretching ever since the day after my long workout, by the end of the day, I couldn’t move my leg. I had torn one of my hamstring muscles. Many of you probably saw me limping around the clinic to treat patients. On top of that, we were leaving for our March break vacation – I had to get help on the plane and walk with a cane. It was a Chiropractic nightmare!

It’s very hard to treat certain areas of your body yourself, so I had to wait until I returned from vacation to get treated by the YOUR HEALTH team. I’m so lucky to have this great team of health care providers on hand and I could get treated every day.

• Osteopathy to help with the fluid dynamics and improve mobility and alignment in the area
• Acupuncture to speed up the healing and to help with the pain
• Laser to promote healing over the tear
• Massage to help with the scar tissue and all the tension in the compensating muscles
• Chiropractic to help with joint mobility and keep the compensating areas moving without creating joint restrictions

With the help of the YOUR HEALTH team, I’m back at the gym with light weights and cardio and working on my swimming. I can keep treating my patients without pain and keep doing the things that I love to do!

Although none of this would be possible without the exceptional treatment from the YOUR HEALTH team, I also have to keep reminding myself that none of it would have been necessary if I had remembered to do my stretches after my workout! Next time, I’ll remember to take my own advice!