Tight Hamstrings?
It might not be your muscles that are causing the problem.
In a lot of people the hamstring tightness may be a protective response to tight nervous tissue such as your sciatic nerve and spinal cord. The soft tissue around the nerves tightens to protect the nerves from overstretch and irritation. You can address this by first freeing up the structures around your sciatic nerve such as the thoracic and lumbar spine and the hip muscles like the glutes and piriformis.,
Try this simple series to loosen up the sciatic nerve.
– Start with the Thoracic spine on the roller to loosen up your joints in the middle of your back.
– Follow it with a release for your glutes to free up the soft tissue that surrounds the sciatic nerve.
– Finish with this gentle nerve “flossing” exercise. Notice when I flex my head down I point the toes and when I pull the toes back to my body I extend my head so I don’t place too great a stretch on the nervous tissue as it can be quite irritable if overstretched.