See the previous post on Osgood Schlatter, before starting here:
Because of the imbalance in the vastus medialis (see last post) I wanted to check the hamstrings a little more closely today when this client came in. This is how I did it:
- I put Zac (our 15 year old client with Osgood Schlatter) prone on the long box facing the foot of the reformer.
- I sprung the reformer with one each of the red, blue and yellow springs.
- I put the foot loops over the arches of his feet.
- I had Zac bend the knees to pull out most of the slack out of the cords. (about 120-115 degrees)
- Zac performed hamstring curls in parallel, external rotation and internal rotation. He did 5 of each with both legs (grooving the motion) and then 5 of each with one leg only (dropped the blue and yellow springs)
- This exercise showed a weakness in the hamstring that creates knee flexion with hip extension in internal rotation. Or in simpler terms: His right leg was much weaker than the left when the knees were together and feet dropped open while trying to perform a hamstring curl.
Homework: I added to Zac’s homework with the exercise in the pic. He is in internal rotation and he is pulling against the weight of the theraband. I am having him do all positions on both legs, double-leg and single leg with the theraband and the help of his very amazing mom. I am also having him do extra work on the position that is most weak (see #6 above).