How To Fix Any Muscle Pull
What's up, guys? Welcome back to the TSB strength podcast. My name is John. I coach many of the highest jumpers in the world like Isaiah Rivera, Tony Crosby, Donvan Hawkins, Dylan McCarthy. List goes on and on.
John:Really good at it. And this is Isaiah Rivera. He has a 50.5 inch vertical leap, hopefully soon to rebreak and reacquire the world record vertical leap. We just gotta get him healthy and get through a couple more cycles, and I think we've got a pretty good chance. Before we get into this podcast, I wanna remind you guys that if you're interested in coaching with us, go to teachmestrength.com, and you can get six months of coaching free when you purchase a six month package.
John:So check that out on the website. The link is in the description. And in today's episode, we're gonna be talking about muscle pulls because this is something that I deal with a lot. It's at the forefront of my mind because I've been studying a lot, so I figured it'd be a good time. And while I do that, let's show you briefly something that we actually have on the website, our school community.
John:So when you pick sign up for coaching, you get access to school. A lot of people don't use But there is an entire guide, Isaiah, if you wanna click the injury section here. Bam. Shabam. Yeah.
John:And I go through all of that.
Isaiah:Already on muscle pulls right here.
John:Mhmm. And there's a lot of stuff in there.
Isaiah:We got PFP, 10 get 10 and guy sessions, sign behind.
John:Yeah. A there's a whole bunch of stuff. We're not gonna overwhelm you guys. But if you're interested in that, you should go check it out if you're one of our athletes. So first, let's talk about what exactly happens or why mechanistically.
John:I've got a pretty good list here. When you pull a muscle, why why does it happen? So first one is going to be the fascicles are over lengthening. So the fascicles are the contractile unit of the muscle, and essentially, they detach and reattach through cross bridging. And if you can't generate force at these lengthened positions or you go too far, then you'll have a muscle strain.
John:So there's three strains. There's, like, grade one, grade two, grade three. Grade three is like a full rupture. Grade two is partial. Grade one is, like, pretty small.
John:Most times, we deal with guys that have the first one. We don't usually get guys that have maybe sometimes grade two. I don't think we've had anyone have a grade three strain. Knock on wood. Fingers crossed.
John:Alright. The next reason why is if you lengthen very fast a muscle and you lack eccentric force generating capabilities. So this could be the peak tension. It could be the rate that you generate the tension. And that brings me to the other one is it's the timing.
John:So you might have really good eccentric force generating capabilities. But if you don't generate that force at the right time, then the tension isn't in the muscle. So it is also, in some ways, related to the coordination. And we know that if you wanna get more coordinated, you have to do the thing that you wanna get better at. Another reason why is if the muscle is going to maybe potentially pick up some of the force that the tendon should be absorbing.
John:So maybe the tendon wasn't compliant or wasn't ready to be stretched at the right time, and then you have some issues. Another big reason why is if you're not warm. So if you don't have the, you know, correct warm up and you're really passive stiffness is really, really high, you're not very compliant, then, you know, you have a higher risk of potentially having the rapid lengthening cause the muscle to get some microfailure, if you will. Another some other ones that you could potentially cause this is poor distribution of load across those fibers. So if you move really bad or you've got one side of the muscle that maybe is worse, like in my case, my some, biceps femoris is really good.
John:My semitendinosus and my menorosis is really bad. Probably why I do a lot of RDLs and that's gonna load that tissue, more. And then, you know, another way that you can do it is if you hit the end range when you're not warmed up enough. So, you know, if I went down and try to touch my toes as fast as I possibly can, there's a risk that I'm gonna have failure at the fast school, and I'm gonna pull the muscle. Then there's, like, some positioning stuff specifically with the hamstring.
John:So if you're in the wrong position, you know, like, you're sprinting and you're anteriorly tilted, that's bad. That's gonna put the hamstring it's gonna lengthen the fascicles, you're gonna be at higher risk. So now let's kinda get into how to address some of these issues. And so as you guys know, you know, I've probably pulled my hamstring more than I'd like to admit. And it's not for not knowing.
John:It's more so for a lack of being disciplined. And so one of the things that I think what the hamstring can work really well is first, you gotta figure out how bad it is. Right? Typically, like I said, it's gonna be like grade one. I think when you first get that pull, typically back off, you know, almost initially.
John:And it's not too dissimilar from what you do with a tendon, honestly. So try to reintegrate isometrics strength because there's no change in length. There's no you know, the fast goal is at the the same length. You could even start at mid ranges and stuff like that. You can start to function to get blood flow to the tissue, which blood flow is helpful for muscles.
John:We know that they do have blood flow and that can be, you know, very advantageous. Once you can kind of get through that stage and you've got minimal pain, I think it's really important to build like, isotonic strength. So you're doing four inch motion activities, maybe slow on the eccentric forces, and then progressively increase the loading and velocity as you go along. So for example, I might start with single leg hip thrust for the hamstring, then I go single leg bridge for my hamstring, and I would do that every day, three sets of, like, thirty seconds. Then I'm gonna build in loading every forty eight to seventy two hours.
John:And I think this is a big mistake people make is they don't give the tissue enough time to repair. They don't give enough time to recover. Like it's possible yesterday when I jumped, felt like a tiny little snake bite. It's probably not like a full out grade one, but I definitely aggravated the tissue and it's still recovering. It's in this process of remodeling.
John:So I have to be very careful because I'm really susceptible to pulling it again. So as we said, you you stretch those sarcomeres, those fascicles too quickly. They can't detach and reattach and maybe the motor control is messed up. You're gonna pull it. So you need to reacquire the motor patterning, and then you also need to reacquire the strength to be able to do that specifically in eccentric conditions.
John:And this is part of the reason why guys like Nordic hamstring curls so much because the eccentric forces on that is is really, really high. And ideally, you're actually getting accentuated eccentrics, which is why when guys can do reps of it, they're not actually achieving the goal of the Nordic hamstring curl. If you're doing reps of it, that means you're not getting an eccentric overload, which means you're not lengthening the fascicles, which means you're not really preventing yourself from running into hamstring issues. It means you're probably pretty strong eccentrically, but you might not be getting the adaptations that we want. And so this is also why, like, the falling Nordics.
John:Because falling Nordics, you actually have velocity involved too. But back to what I was saying. So let's say you start to increase, you know, RDL, and then maybe you're bleeding in some hip or knee flexion stuff, and then you're doing that every other day, pretty low doses. This is where a lot of people go wrong is they and I did, is that they don't build into the elastic activity slowly. I think that a lot of people are too overzealous with this, and then they end up re injuring themselves.
John:And this is what I fall into a lot because you have to be patient with muscles. You have to give them time to adapt. And as you get older, it's so much slower. Like, when I was younger, I could probably do I could probably pull it and, like, by the end of the week, I was good. I could pretty much max ever jump.
John:But as I've gotten older and I've accumulated more strains, it's I'm at a higher risk already because I'm older. And then also it's gonna take longer for that tissue to recover and kinda repair. Things I don't think really work well, like, say, where are some BS stuff? Because I, you know, I've been yapping. But what's some BS stuff that you think is just like, yeah, this is kinda bullshit?
Isaiah:I don't know a lot of BS because I'm coached by you.
John:That's true. But
Isaiah:that that bad information in my brain. Like No. I Yeah.
John:Go ahead. You have some ideas.
Isaiah:I can't really think of BS things, but mistakes I've made were going too heavy too soon in the weight room. That's one of them. Rushing the elastic work similarly, to what to what you did. And time. Like, you have to understand, and this is with most any injury, like, you have to give it time.
Isaiah:So finding something, like, that you can distract yourself with in the weight room. We've mentioned this before in the podcast, but shifting goals, maybe that's getting if you have a quad pull, maybe it's getting RDL strong. If you have a hamstring pulled, freaking get your calf raised otherworldly or something. Or your squat in
John:my Yeah.
Isaiah:Yeah. Upper doing upper body work, that sort of thing. And what's helped me is finding an an elastic activity that where I can still have fun and not worry about because building and jumps is boring. It's boring as hell. So that means you can, you know, go play catch or something like that or go play a game of, for me, it was basketball.
Isaiah:That's always helped with with rehab.
John:That's a good idea. Why didn't I do that?
Isaiah:Another thing, it's not a tendon. I always messed up essentially treating it like a tendon where a tendon, like, a three out of 10 pain might be fine. I have found generally just staying completely away from pain. Basically, doing the the most intense thing I can do without feeling the grabbing sensation never steered me wrong. Anytime I've delayed my recovery is because I keep getting that grabbing sensation, but I found if I avoid it, it can get healthy pretty quickly.
John:I've noticed that as well, for sure. And I think there's actually some research out there that says doing nothing is the same as doing something. The problem is in terms of recovery time lines, it's not necessarily faster. What happens is your readiness is better. So you're more equipped to not reinjure it is more so why you're training it.
John:It's not gonna help it recover faster, but what you can do is make it recover slower if you push too hard. And I think a lot of people make that mistake, and I myself do. I love to train. It's my favorite
Isaiah:thing in the world. And when in doubt, don't do it. Yeah. I think I think I think both you and Donovan asked me, should I do x y z this week? And I had just, you know, I had just done the session, I kept doing it as a joke, but it ended up being true.
Isaiah:I was just like, don't be like me. Like, I was like doing a funny don't do it. Trust me. Don't don't give in to your impulsive
John:You know, hearing that now, I feel really dumb.
Isaiah:I'm like, oh, shit. My coaches need coaches. I know, but need coaches.
John:Yeah. But you every time I get you to coach me, it's just don't don't don't let me do what I want.
Isaiah:Yeah. No. It's, like, all jokes aside, when in doubt, don't do it. Like, I I've never I've regretted jumping when I wasn't supposed to many times. I've never regretted doing the same thing ever ever.
Isaiah:If anything, not even regret it's not even close to regret. I'm, like, happy. Like, I go in, get after in the weight room, keep a session short. Like, I'm on cloud nine, but you're it's it's crazy because, like, it's such a you know, jumping is so fun. And, like, you know but you should know you shouldn't do it.
Isaiah:And then it the amount of time it's like a 70% chance I see, not just from you, John, it's like all the guys. Dunk depression. Gets us all.
John:I did. A guy who lasted
Isaiah:and there's a seventy percent chance, maybe higher of, like, It was like, Smaller percentage is, like, bad, like, catastrophic happens or something. But
John:Yeah. I didn't tear my Achilles. I think that used to be a legitimate fear of mine. So I'd say it's really a dub, honestly.
Isaiah:Oh, more more advice. Just get through day one. Day one always sucks. Day two, sometimes kinda shitty too. By day three, you can usually start feeling better.
Isaiah:Like, you can do things that you weren't doing in day one, and that has a lot of psychological benefits. There was actually I think there was, like, a, like, a psychology study where they were interviewing, I think it was amputees, either that or, like, quadriplegics. And what was interesting is that their subjective well-being went back to baseline. I think it was amputees because I don't think you can guess when someone's gonna be a quadriplegic. But, their subjective level of well-being went to baseline really shortly after the amputation.
Isaiah:So, like, how happy you generally feel before you amputated, and then, like, a month later, you're about the same.
John:That's interesting.
Isaiah:And it's the same anytime I've got because I've gone through some pretty catastrophic injuries where it derails me for a few months. And really quickly, first couple of days are bad, but as soon as you start making progress, like, oh, knee feels way better today. Oh, the muscle I tore, the tendon I tore feels way better than it did last week. Like, you're gonna be looking forward to training and it it's always fun making progress. So Yeah.
Isaiah:Yeah.
John:I just don't wanna get fat. But also Dom gets back next week, so my series will recontinue because I have another
Isaiah:He's back. The prodigal son returns.
John:Prodigal son.
Isaiah:Busted ass one on one.
John:Yeah. That's right. Eight days. Eight days. He's back.
John:So
Isaiah:I'm not gonna let you beat me.
John:It's not gonna happen. In pool or basketball?
Isaiah:Basketball.
John:Okay. I was gonna say. Because he does beat you in pool. Yeah. Yeah.
Isaiah:Well, my my technique. I found my new technique. Yes. I look at the I look at the ball now instead of the cue ball. I look at the arm.
John:I know. I've gotten way better. Just so everyone knows, beat Isaiah to give him a pool.
Isaiah:But I coached him.
John:He did. But I and he stopped coaching me because he knew it was too close for comfort. And I beat him, and it's I mean, it's probably my greatest accolade to this day. Oh, absolutely.
Isaiah:I'm curious. Leave a comment. Do you guys like when we talk about random stuff, or do you want us to keep it strictly jump training?
John:Yeah. I would actually really like to know that too because there's so many times I could just talk about my relationship was on the podcast. Actually Be super, like
Isaiah:do this. I don't care what they say. Everybody next podcast we do is not gonna be jump training related. We're gonna answer all your non jump training related questions.
John:Oh, yeah.
Isaiah:This will be a brand building podcast. You guys can feel good to us as people. And we're we're not just jump yappers. We're just yappers in general.
John:Yeah. We we like to talk about life. And, I told Isaiah the other day, I was like, we're on our way to go play pool, and
Isaiah:I was like, you know, sometimes I just
John:wanna get on the podcast, you know, hop on the horn and just say some out of pocket stuff about my life and, you know, kinda and see what see what you guys think. You know, it's funny the other day, I like the reel. That was, like, personal, and one of you guys that was listening, like, comment and was like, buddy's going through it. And I was like and Isaiah was like, yeah. My brother saw the same thing.
John:And I was like, oh. So if you like that stuff, let us know. But, yeah, that's the podcast, guys. Back to jump training. If you wanna jump higher, you wanna be a better athlete, and you wanna not make the same mistakes I do because I'll coach you not to make the same mistakes I do because I know Isaiah isn't coaching me right now.
John:Go to tsbstrength.com.
Isaiah:Six months free by the year package. Coaching, if you pay month to month, it's 1,800 a month. Get the year. 1,800 a a year. A year.
Isaiah:Yeah. 1,800 a month would be crazy. Okay.
John:That's twenty twenty vibes, $20.20
Isaiah:That's one on one coaching by John Prices. But, yeah, it's 1,800 for a year if you pay month to month. You can get the year, pay 900. That's the same thing as getting six months completely for free. Highly suggest you do that because if you invest yourself in yourself, you're more likely to do the training.
Isaiah:If you do the training, you're gonna get better. So go sign up.
John:Alright. See you guys.
