Hamstring injury as a preview of athletic biomechanical knee injuries: A review article

Back ground and aim: Hamstring strain is the most prevalent injury with long term complications and the attendant poor function. As previousely known, hamstring has an important role in knee joint biomechanics and there is a link between its function and the function of Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL). The aim of the present study was to review the hamstring injury effects on the knee biomechanical changes and its role in increasing the incidence of non-contact knee injuries such as ACL tearing as the most common injury.
PubMed, ScienceDirect, and GoogleScholar databases were searched for studies published in English between 2000 and 2016. The following terms: knee, athletes, and hamstring injury, as well as the combination of these terms were used.
Among the relevant studies, 32 studies were selected based on the topics and then divided into three groups: 1) hamstring neuromuscular changes after injury; 2) role of hamstring injury on the knee biomechanical changes, and 3) hamstring co-activation with the other lower extremity muscles.
Because of long term defect after hamstring injury, long term period of treatment, and its effects on the knee joint biomechanics in some special tasks, hamstring injury could be the reason of knee joint biomechanical changes and non-contact injuries, such as ACL tearing.