Max Velocity Sprinting and Eccentric exercises are the key to avoid muscle injuries !
You must sprint!! Sprinting is the missing component in many return to sport or rehab protocols for hamstring injuries (and any lower limb injury for that matter).
No strengthening exercise can induce the amount of hamstring activation (or with the kind of velocity) that sprinting does.
Strength exercises can reach only 18-75% of the electromyographic activity reached by hamstrings during sprinting.
Sprinting not only facilitates healing/repair, but it also provides performance benefits at the same time. It is dubbed a “repair and prepare” strategy.
Lastly, athletes who were exposed to high intensity sprints during practice, showed a lower risk of lower body injuries compared to those with lower velocity runs.
We also know the hamstrings should be “long and strong” so we use eccentrics. “athletes with shorter BFlh were 4.1 times more likely to sustain a HSI than those with longer fascicle lengths.”
“athletes with lower eccentric hamstring strength (<337 N) were at 4.4 times greater risk of a subsequent HSI than stronger players.”
Fred Dunkan ,Coach-Author -Speaker https://www.fredduncan.com/shop/