If you have a hamstring injury, you don’t have to sit around for weeks doing nothing waiting for it to heal. Intelligently adjusting your workouts to avoid aggravating the injury will allow you to maintain your fitness. Once the hamstring heals, you’ll be primed to continue making gains.

Use these exercise modifications when training with a hamstring injury. Always listen to your medical staff, and if the exercise causes pain, don’t do it.

• Squats and Leg Presses — limit range of motion to 135 degrees (i.e., quarter-squat position)
• Good Mornings and RDLs — limit movement to half of your normal range of motion
• Deadlifts, Power Cleans and Power Snatches — start with the bar at mid-thigh and finish in the quarter-squat position
• Stationary bikes and elliptical machines — OK if pain-free
• Kettlebell Swings and Heavy Ropes — OK in a pain-free range of motion
• AVOID Plyometrics
• AVOID sprinting, jogging and agility drills
• AVOID Squat Cleans, Squat Snatches, Lunges, Split-Squats, Leg Curls and Back Raises