Return-to-Play Criteria Following a Hamstring Injury in Professional Soccer: Time for a Tailor-Made Approach

A hamstring injury rehabilitation and return-to-play (RTP) individualized approach based on the anatomical structure involved, the location of the injury, and the mechanism of injury is still missing in most studies. RTP criteria should be chosen following the same principles and the complexity of the injury and should receive more attention from the scientific community given that reinjury risk is one of the main challenges associated with hamstring rehabilitation. The available literature is mainly based on articles in which hamstring injuries are treated as a whole without making distinctions for their specific characteristics.

There is a need to improve how we look at RTP criteria for hamstring injuries to improve decision making and help practitioners design the most suitable RTP protocols. We should consider the anatomical structure and the complexity of the injury to determine the importance of lay-off time and healing, understand the implication of the location of injury and the muscle involved on strength-test selection, and knowledge of the mechanism of injury and workload before the injury to assess the ability to activate the muscles in a sport- and mechanism-specific position and prepare the athlete with an appropriate exposure to high-speed running and technical skills.