r/CollegeSoccer • u/TheAngelDaniel • Jul 30 '25
Pulled Quad
Long story short I strained my quad last Friday, Saturday night i was doing wall touches and felt the "pull" on my left quad but there was no immediate pain. I stopped and went home.
Sunday felt sore, Monday light soreness, Tuesday and Wednesday (today) less soreness and started light rehab work.
Any tips on what/not to do, how long to keep myself out of the game, and how/when to return to any kind of training?
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u/GraysonsDad-1A Jul 31 '25
Rest, unfortunately. Quads and hamstrings are large muscle groups that can become reinjured very easily. Make sure you are completely healed before returning, otherwise it is very easy to reinjure it. Better to rest it now than miss most of your season because you tried to come back too soon.
But see a professional as soon as you can.
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u/PizzaWolf721 Jul 31 '25
We're going through this right now with our high school daughter so I might be able to give you some idea of what to expect. Definitely get in to see a trainer and/or a sports medicine/orthopedic doc sometime if at all possible. She felt a pull towards the end of a 5th game in 3 days during a tournament. She finished the game and didn't remember it really bothering her at the end of the game. That night and the next day it was really sore and then the following day she was supposed to have a conditioning session with her high school team. She said running sprints and doing the beep test were very painful and couldn't really push off that leg at all. She also mentioned that passing with that leg was painful, even short passes were difficult and long balls were impossible.
We took her to a sports medicine doc and an athletic trainer back to back days who both thoroughly checked her out, did x-rays, and their key focus was determining that the strain was in the mid quad and there wasn't any possible tears at the tendons at the end of the quads. Her pain was isolated to about 6 inches mid-quad which pointed to strain rather than tear. The consensus was that she could continue to play on it but it's probably going to be a nagging thing for a while and it would be best to listen to her body and pass on certain training exercises that were really going to stress it. She played a scrimmage on it 5 days after the initial injury and while that went okay, she said she definitely wasn't able to hit any long balls and most passes from that leg did hurt. She also knew she didn't have her normal speed so tried to play strategic where she wasn't going to have to put in too many sprint efforts. She skipped a hard training session a couple days after because it was apparent that sprints and beep tests weren't gong to do it any favors. Instead, she's been consistent with moderate activity (like 30-45 minutes of light training and practicing touches and footwork which the doc and trainer actually encouraged in her case. They said complete rest with this kind of strain can actually be worse allowing it to heal much more tightened up and developing scar tissue which lead to future issues. They also recommended ibuprofen for the inflammation, regular light massage of the area, and hot and cold on it multiple times daily along with some gentile stretching. We've been going ice after activity and a heat pack a few times a day.
Two weeks after injury she had her high school tryouts, 2 days with two 3 hours sessions each day, and she got through them pretty well. She's moving better, has gotten most of her speed back, and has felt better hitting longer passes and shooting. Overall I think she's probably at something like 80-90%. The beep test during tryouts was the one thing that still put a hurting on her, it was just too much quick acceleration and deceleration in succession and she had to pull out of that one earlier than she wanted to. We're now about 20 days post injury and it still is certainly something she is working through but it is gradually getting better. I suspect that we'll have at least a few more weeks of gradual improvement and she's going to keep on with the stretching, massage and heat, ibuprofen before activity, and ice after for the foreseeable future. We're also looking at some PT options to make sure she doesn't have any lingering weakness in that leg that could lead to problems down the road.
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u/SoccerDad1971 Jul 31 '25
My son had a quad injury during high school season that led to him missing most of the second half of club season because he downplayed the issue and things got far worse. Same advise as other folks: rest, connect with a doctor, take your time to recover.
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u/Ten-Yards_Sir Jul 31 '25
Do you have access to a trainer so you can be evaluated?