Yesterday was the start of the 2012 NFL football season and I was stoked to watch the Cowboys and the Giants play.  But, it continues to befuddle me in this day and age, with all the knowledge we have on training, how certain athletes continue to get injured.  Yes, I’m talking to you Miles Austin. 

Miles has had hamstring issues the last two years and can’t seem to get them fixed.  You can’t blame these injuries on the rigors of football.  These are just, take off and sprint then BAM go the hamstrings.  Hardly any contact involved with these injuries.  I think it is a training issue, so let’s discuss.

You all know that I believe hamstrings need to be strengthened to optimize your speed.

I’ve talked about hamstring exercises that I truly enjoy.  I’ve shared my experiences with hamstring strength, or lack thereof, and how it has benefited me in my sport endeavors.  You would think that someone like Miles Austin who had trouble in both hamstrings last year, would have spent this entire off-season getting them prepared so you wouldn’t have a similar injury this year.  But, no…he hurts the hammy and he’s out the rest of the preseason.

Let’s give you a little backdrop here.  I’m a Cowboys fan.  Have been since the days of Roger Staubach.  So, I need Miles Austin healthy.  I also play fantasy football, where I shell out my hard earned money to be put into a pot so that I can show the rest of my league, I’m the best GM when it comes to fantasy football.  I got Miles Austin for cheap on my team, which if he stays healthy could really help me win all the CASH at the end of the season.  He does me no good on the bench.

From Austin’s standpoint, he has a breakout season in 2009.  Jerry Jones rewards him with a nice contract.  He dates a Kardashian for a little bit.  Okay, I’m not really stating my case here.  He’s living a heck of a life, but his stats in 2010 were down.  Then last year, after the shortened training camp and pre-season (which not all players were prepping their bodies the way they should have), he has the lingering hamstring issue throughout most of the season.

The season ends and you would think in his mind he’s saying, “I need to get my body fixed so I don’t have these hamstring issues.”  Austin needs those hamstrings to be firing on all cylinders.  If they aren’t, you are a wide receiver that can’t generate any speed, which kind of hurts your game.  Austin should have hired a specialist to give him a complete assessment.

He tweaked his hamstring again in 2012, so obviously something is eschew with him.

The specialist should have looked at Austin’s movement patterns to see if he (or she, but I’m going to stick with ‘he’ throughout the rest of the post) could identify muscle imbalances or inflexibilities.  Which means, I’m going to be doing a Functional Movement Screen at the very least.  This might not identify all the specific problems, but I might be able to at least see some initial issues that will help me go down the path I need to get him fixed.

Then, I would take some video analysis of him running and different movements he might do in a game.  If you slow the video down, I might be able to identify some more items of note.  Maybe a muscle isn’t firing properly or maybe there is an overcompensation that needs to be addressed.

After analyzing that data, I can then put together a gameplan to first get the right muscles firing correctly.  This can entail certain correctives exercises that will either be stretches or light strengthening exercises.  Then, once everything is where it needs to be, you begin to strengthen the heck out of the muscle.

A lot of times hamstrings get pulled because the quadriceps are heck of a lot stronger than the hammies.  They are generating so much power and the hamstrings can’t keep up, so they pop.  You’ll never get them as strong as your quads, but you need to shoot for at least 80% of the quad strengh.  For hamstring strengthening, you know my favorites: glute ham raise, manual glute ham raise or manual hamstring curls, romanian deadlifts, or single leg bridges.  Hit that posterior chain with everything you have twice a week and on a proper periodization program so by the time the season begins, it is as strong as heck.  Excuse my rough language.

At the same time, you want to implement a stretching program.  Keep them as flexible as possible.  If they aren’t, then your range of motion will be limited.  If you start generating a force that puts strain on that flexibility, you could do some damage.  So, keep that flexibility as great as possible which will give you the greatest range of motion for sprinting.

Hey, maybe he did do all that this off-season.  Maybe, he just happens to have bad luck and can’t keep those hamstrings healthy.  I hope that is it.  I certainly don’t want my fantasy football season riding on the fact Austin didn’t do his due diligence and get his body properly prepared for the season.  Get it done!  Get those hamstrings healthy and keep them healthy.