With the AFL season entering Round 9 for 2025, I wanted to have a look back at my experience of working in the VFL for the past 2 seasons and provide some wisdom for players in the 2025 season.
Over the past 2 seasons working with the Northern Bullants in the VFL, hamstring injuries have been one of our most prevalent injuries. This is supported by AFL clubs as well with an average of roughly 7 hamstring injuries per club per year.
Risk factors?
Multiple risk factors are present for hamstring injuries with the main ones being older age (>25), previous hamstring injury and decreased hamstring strength as well as a previous groin or calf injury (Smith et al., 2021; Sim et al., 2024).
Recovery time frame
The average return to play timeframe is 4-7 weeks, however at this point full recovery has not occurred, evidenced by 1 in 4 players reinjuring their hamstring in the first 12 months (Breed et al., 2024). To prevent this from occurring, players need to be rehabilitating these injuries well after they are pain free and have returned to play (Breed et al., 2024).
Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation should be specific and tailored to each individual player's needs (Pizzari et al., 2010). A focus should be placed on strengthening the relevant structures, having a guided running training plan and a systematic approach to the reintroduction of training and games to decrease the likelihood of reinjury (Breed et al., 2024). These steps are essential to prevent reinjury as currently 1 in 4 players will reinjure their hamstring (Breed et al., 2024).
This blog was written by Ben McKenzie, Physiotherapist at Back In Motion Eltham.
References:
- Smith, N. A., Franettovich Smith, M. M., Bourne, M. N., Barrett, R. S., & Hides, J. A. (2021). A prospective study of risk factors for hamstring injury in Australian football league players. Journal of Sports Sciences, 39(12), 1395–1401. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2021.1875613
- Breed, R., Opar, D., Maniar, N., & Pizzari, T.. (2024). Epidemiology of Hamstring Strain Injuries in Elite Male Australian Football Players: An Analysis of 773 Injuries Over 7 Seasons. JOSPT Open, 2(4), 289–296. https://doi.org/10.2519/josptopen.2024.0359
- Sim, A., Timmins, R. G., Ruddy, J. D., Shen, H., Liao, K., Maniar, N., Hickey, J. T., Williams, M. D., & Opar, D. A. (2024). Hamstring Strain Injury Risk Factors in Australian Football Change over the Course of the Season. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 56(2), 297–306. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000003297
- Pizzari, T., Wilde, V., Coburn, P. (2010). Management of hamstring muscle strain injuries in the Australian Football League (AFL): A survey of current practice. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, Volume 13, e76
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