Hamstring tendon rehab - balancing recovery with development question

Hi there,

I'm currently in the stages of recovery from chronic pes anserine tendonitis. I'm just about to be discharged by my physio who seems to say that they've done as much as they can.

The injury was helped hugely by hip flexor stretches & Glute exercises - I have gone from giving a ridiculous positive result on the Thomas Test, to being able to have my thigh horizontal. This seems to have allowed the pes area to heal, I guess by easing the slight pelvic tilt I had. I'm now beginning to walk about without any real pain, but any sort of exercise is painful afterwards right across the hamstrings. I'm very reluctant to stretch these out as this seemed to kick off the condition in the first place.

I'm a keen cyclist who is pretty desperate to get back to even riding 30 miles (I used to be a 80+ guy until about Easter).

My questions are as follows:

1) last night I started some very light eccentric hamstring curls. Curling with one leg, releasing with the other. I'm very sore today in both hamstrings, but with no tendon pain. Is this normal?

2) I have hamstring dominance that caused the glute weakness. It was very hard to get the glutes to fire initially - would eccentric training the hamstrings just make this worse?

3) What is your opinion on the balance between just enjoying not being in pain from the pes tendons, and beginning to exercise the area to stimulate healing? I'm a little worried that if I just wait, I'll try & return to sport only to be in pain again. This seems to be a common theme on the web, where some publications are claiming that tendons need to be challenged eccentrically in order to properly heal.

4) Should I stretch the hammies?

5) What's the sort of timescale for tendon healing? I guess meaning when should I return to cycling? I spent weeks in pain, then when I started the hip flexor stretches & glute work, the pain reduced from about 8/10 to 3/10 in 2-3 weeks. I'm guessing I could be looking at months for a proper heal?

Thanks for any comments you may have.