{"id":25557,"date":"2019-07-26T10:35:54","date_gmt":"2019-07-26T16:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=25557"},"modified":"2025-12-11T07:40:45","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T14:40:45","slug":"torn-hamstring-is-not-stopping-this-71-year-old-athlete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/torn-hamstring-is-not-stopping-this-71-year-old-athlete\/","title":{"rendered":"Torn hamstring is not stopping this 71-year-old athlete"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Susan
Susan High has been an avid athlete all her life. Now she’s back in action after surgery and rehabilitation for a torn hamstring. Photos by Cyrus McCrimmon for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Susan High was no stranger to bumps, bruises and strains. She\u2019d skied for decades, and expertly enough to have taught at Eldora Mountain Resort. She\u2019d played competitive soccer into her forties. She had run the first Bolder Boulder in 1979 and every one since. At 71, she was playing on four tennis teams. So on May 4, when she dashed toward the net, reached for a short ball, and heard something pop as her right leg gave way, she knew, as she put it, \u201cthis wasn\u2019t a minor injury.\u201d<\/p>\n

She had torn her right hamstring \u2013 the muscle on the back of the thigh \u2013 from its moorings on the lower loop of pelvis known as the ischium. The injury brought her back to a different sort of team, one she knew well: UCHealth Steadman Hawkins Clinic Denver<\/a>. She\u2019d had her left knee replaced there in 2015 and had been guided through the rehabilitation process by UCHealth Steadman Hawkins physical therapist Megan Williams. High would soon be seeing Williams again.<\/p>\n

Three in one<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Like its quadriceps cousin on the front of the thigh, the hamstring is technically a misnomer. It\u2019s actually three muscles. Though that\u2019s one fewer than the quadriceps, it one-ups its more prominent partner in that the hamstring reaches all the way from the pelvis to below the knee (the quadriceps stops above the knee).<\/p>\n

\"71-year-old
Susan High is back on her feet and able to walk her dog, Lucy, again.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hamstring tears \u2013 a.k.a. \u201cpulled hammies\u201d \u2013 are common among athletes, particularly those in sports with sharp changes of pace and direction. The vast majority can be treated without surgery. But High had torn all three tendons from the pelvic bone. They had retracted about two inches from where they had been anchored and would never reconnect without surgical repair.<\/p>\n

People who deal with hamstring tears tend to be either young and active people who slipped while rock climbing or were thrust forward with a straight leg while skiing or waterskiing, or older people with underlying tendinopathy that weakens the tendon. Low blood flow to the hamstring tendons connecting to the ischium contributes to the problem of tendinopathy.<\/p>\n

Surgery to repair an injury like High\u2019s is technically optional. But not doing it risks persistent pain, weakness and disability. A further risk would be scar tissue on the damaged tendons pressing against the neighboring sciatic nerve. For someone such as High, who aimed to get back on slopes and tennis courts, surgery was essential to maintain her quality of life.<\/p>\n

The fix<\/strong><\/h3>\n

High limped around for a few days after the injury, waiting for the swelling settle down so she could go in for surgery. When colleagues at the small Aurora hospital where High works as pharmacy director asked what was going on, she hiked up her right pantleg to show bruising that extended down to her lower calf. On May 16, she had surgery.<\/p>\n

\"Susan
Susan High loves a variety of sports and is eager to get back to all of them from running to skiing and tennis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Her doctor made a two-inch incision where leg meets rump, moved gluteal muscle out of the way, found and isolated the sciatic nerve, sutured anchors into the ischium and wove sutures into the tendon to reconnect them. Ninety minutes later, the procedure was complete. Now it was time to heal and rehabilitate.<\/p>\n

The Bolder Boulder, 11 days later, seemed entirely out the question \u2013 a disappointment to High, one of just eight women who had run it every year since its inception. But UCHealth Steadman Hawkins physician assistant Jeremy Smith volunteered to push her through the 10-kilometer course in a wheelchair, and his prospective load quickly lightened as High\u2019s friends from tennis and elsewhere said they\u2019d like to help too. With all that and Bolder Boulder officials\u2019 blessing, High was able to make it 41 straight years. (Check out Denver CBS4\u2019s story<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\"Runner
A friend made Susan High a quilt that features tee-shirts from the Bolder Boulder races she has completed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Megan Williams, the physical therapist, would again work with High. As Williams and colleagues do with all patients, she customized a program that combined surgery-specific recovery protocols developed and refined over many years with the specifics of High\u2019s case. Shortly after the surgery, she met with High and explained the approach and the many milestones involved in recovery. Having worked with High through the knee-replacement rehabilitation, Williams knew her to be a motivated, dedicated rehab patient. That\u2019s not always the case, Williams says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI may be biased as a PT, but I think the rehab is equally important as the surgery. If you don\u2019t rehab properly, you\u2019ll never regain the strength, the motion, or the desired level of function,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI\u2019m always surprised when patients don\u2019t do the rehab.\u201d<\/p>\n

Different program<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This would be a much different sort of rehabilitation, though. A knee replacement is as strong as it\u2019s ever going to be the moment a patient rolls out of the operating room. A hamstring repair must be treated gingerly. For six weeks, High wouldn\u2019t be allowed to put any weight on it at all \u2013 nor could she even drive. Then, over a period of weeks, Williams and High would slowly work on muscle groups above and below the hamstring, then on the stretching and strengthening the hamstring, and finally on patient- and sport-specific training. Steadman Hawkins\u2019 protocols are specific to the point that a baseball outfielder\u2019s late-stage rehab will differ from that of a pitcher; same with a football quarterback and a running back.<\/p>\n

\"Susan
Susan High at home with her wife, Jo Ann Weinstein, and their dog, Lucy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

High\u2019s expectations are, well, high: she intends to be back on the tennis court helping her multiple teams, back on the slopes, and back at the Bolder Boulder without Jeremy Smith serving as a vastly overqualified wheelchair motor. Williams is planning accordingly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I have someone who wants to get back to gardening, I\u2019m not going to have them doing plyometric box jumps,\u201d she said. \u201cBut if they want to get back to skiing, yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

High was walking again by July; by September, light jogging could be in the cards. Patients are typically able to return to their normal activities six months after surgery, he says. High, to no surprise, has more aggressive ambitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thinking four to six months,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She and Williams will gauge her progress and, presumably, come to a negotiated settlement. Regardless, High’s team took pleasure in seeing patients regain what they otherwise might have lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen someone gets back out there running again and doing what she loves to do, it just makes it all worthwhile,\u201d her doctor said.<\/p>\n