That tight hamstring you’ve been stretching might be your nervous system asking for something else entirely.

When pain shows up in one place, the source is often somewhere else. Dr. Andrew Fix walks through a real patient case from Physio Room where a woman who was experiencing persistent pain in her hamstring had been doing what most people do: stretching it out and hoping mobility work would eventually help. The sciatic nerve originates from the lowest nerve roots of the lumbar spine, and when those roots get irritated, the nerve signals the hamstring to hold protective tension. What feels like tightness is the nervous system protecting itself. Stretching works against that response.

In many cases like this one, the root cause is a lack of spinal stability. Without adequate muscular control around the pelvis and lumbar spine, gravity loads the vertebral joints and compresses the nerve roots every time you sit or stand. Dr. Fix explains how positional testing revealed exactly this pattern: her hamstring tested pain-free lying down but reproduced symptoms seated. When she was cued to engage her deep core before repeating the painful test, symptoms dropped roughly 70% without a single hands-on intervention. The muscle was the same. The spinal load was not.

How often are people chasing mobility and flexibility when the real missing ingredient is stability and control? Dr. Fix makes the case for thorough assessment before any treatment begins, and offers a clear signal to watch for: if a practitioner skips the diagnostic work and goes straight to treating what you describe, it is worth getting a second opinion.

Quotes

• “Nerves are like electrical cords. They don’t enjoy being tugged on.” (04:25 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
• “Your body’s trying to have this protective mechanism, we’re trying to stretch and take it away, and we’re not necessarily helping ourselves out. We’re temporarily relieving symptoms, but we’re not addressing the real issue at hand.” (04:40 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
• “When you have a lack of stability, what you cannot do is you cannot stretch it away. Because stretching doesn’t give you stability. Stability is like strength and control, your ability to control the joints and the tissues while you’re going through movement.” (05:20 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
• “It hurts when there’s no stability being created for the spine. But it doesn’t hurt or doesn’t hurt nearly as much when we do create some stability for the spine.” (11:17 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
• “They shouldn’t be just starting to treat something before they’ve really done a thorough assessment to know what they need to treat in the first place.” (13:54 | Dr. Andrew Fix)

Links

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The post 229. What if Your Tightness is Trying to Protect You? appeared first on Physio Room.

“A lot of times we find people start to strengthen rather than just stretch, and wouldn’t you know it, their symptoms start to change. Their symptoms start to go away, because strengthening through the range of motion can actually help you provide more mobility and more length through the tissue,” explains host Dr. Andrew Fix.Today, Dr. Andrew talks about common issues like low back pain and sciatica and getting to the root cause rather than only focusing on the symptoms.

People frequently seek out physical therapy when stretching fails to relieve symptoms for what they refer to as tightness in their hamstring. In reality, ‘tight’ is a slang term and the root of the symptoms is unlikely to be tense or shortened muscles that need to be lengthened through stretching. In some cases stretching can actually cause more pain and problems long term due to irritating the nerves. And oftentimes, the root cause is actually coming from the pelvis or the lower lumbar region of the spine rather than the hamstrings themselves.

If you feel like you have a ‘tight’ hamstring, it may indicate an underlying issue that would benefit from physical therapy to strengthen and stabilize the deep muscles of your core. By finding and working on the root of the pain, you can begin to see improvements in the symptoms.

Quotes

• “We hear the story that someone is stretching and stretching and stretching their hamstrings over and over and over again. And unfortunately, they are not always getting the results that they’re expecting or hoping for, because the hamstring is not the root of the issue, it is the symptom.” (8:19-9:07 | Dr. Andrew)

• “A lot of times we find people start to strengthen rather than just stretch, and wouldn’t you know it, their symptoms start to change. Their symptoms start to go away, because strengthening through the range of motion can actually help you provide more mobility, more length through the tissue.” (15:07-15:24 | Dr. Andrew)

• “If you’ve been stretching it over and over and over again, do you really have short hamstrings? Do you really have tight hamstrings that need to be stretched out? Or is it possible that the issue that you’re actually dealing with could be something else?” (19:15-19:30 | Dr. Andrew)

Links

Connect with Physio Room: 

Website | ​​https://physioroomco.com/

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Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/physioroomco

Andrew’s Personal Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/dr.andrewfix/

Andrew’s Personal Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/andrew.fix.9/

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

The post 54. Do You Really Have Tight Hamstrings? appeared first on Physio Room.