Yunus Barisik

We have all heard the guideline that you should wait at least 48 hours before training the same muscle group again. In a full-body strength program with three weekly sessions, this recommendation leads to workouts falling on alternate days—for example, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This is a good rule of thumb to follow and one I recommend sticking to in a perfect world. But what if you don’t live in a perfect world?

Among the few hundred junior hockey players I’ve coached over the years, I’ve noticed a trend that keeps repeating itself like a horrid nightmare on Elm Street. Whenever a young athlete joins us from another team, his strength levels and especially his lifting technique rarely match up with our standards in the weight room.

Hamstring muscle injuries are extremely common among athletes. They cause significant loss of training and competition time and have a high probability (between 12% and 31%) to recur. A whopping 37% of all reported muscular injuries in soccer are hamstring injuries, with the vast majority taking place in non-contact situations. In addition to soccer, hamstring injuries often happen in sports where high speed sprinting and kicking are frequently performed.