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Acute groin or adductor strains are a common injury in sports or activities with a lot of twisting, turning or kicking. Although these kinds of injuries are at times unavoidable, there are ways of significantly reducing your risk of incurring an acute groin strain or injury with a structured injury prevention programme focussed on increasing the strength of your adductor muscles which are very often ignored in strength programmes.
The Copenhagen Adductor exercise programme has been shown to significantly prevent groin problems in professional soccer players and when adhered to with a gradual progression and increase in intensity can go a long way to reducing your risk of suffering a groin strain (1)
Chronic groin injuries can prove much more problematic and difficult to recover from then acute groin strains. Terms often used to describe chronic groin injuries are Athletic Groin Pain, Osteiitis Pubis, Gilmore’s groin, Adductor Tendinopathy, Sports Hernia. While some of these involve damage to different structures in and around the groin and inguinal area, the common theme with them as that they can be very painful and take a long time to fully recover. The rehab for these injuries tends to be very specific to the individual and injury. Often a period of rest from aggravating activity alongside rehab exercises addressing any deficits in strength or range of motion in and around the hip and groin is the starting point for recovery. From this point, a gradual increase in the intensity and difficulty of the rehab as well as correction of any biomechanical issues or running technique issues should be incorporated as pain allows. Return to activity should follow if all strength, technique and pain goals have been achieved. The nature of these injuries requires a very thorough assessment and design of a detailed and well planned rehabilitation programme which we at Kevin Feely Athletic Therapy Clinic are experts in providing.
1. Harøy, J., Clarsen, B., Wiger, E.G., Øyen, M.G., Serner, A., Thorborg, K., Hölmich, P., Andersen, T.E. and Bahr, R., 2019. The Adductor Strengthening Programme prevents groin problems among male football players: a cluster-randomised controlled trial. Br J Sports Med, 53(3), pp.150-157.