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 Groin injuries are common in soccer, ice hockey, rugby, Australian
rules football, Gaelic football and cricket, lead author Dr. Jackie
L. Whittaker of the Sport Injury Prevention Research Center at the
University of Calgary in Canada told Reuters Health by email.
Whittaker would advise athletes to “strengthen their hip adductor
muscles and ease into their sport specific training in the off
season so that they are ready to go once the actual training season
begins,” she said.
Adductors are the inner thigh muscles.
Coaches and trainers can also add an injury prevention neuromuscular
warm-up program before practices and games, such as the FIFA11+
(http://bit.ly/1nyDyqA). These can reduce lower extremity injury
risk and improve aspects of performance, including balance, she
said.
“The other issue to consider is load management, meaning properly
balanced training and recovery schedule,” Whittaker said.
She and her coauthors reviewed 29 studies of the association between
any potential groin injury risk factor or prevention strategy and
injury rates among athletes. They included the hip flexors,
adductors and bone-tendon junctions under the umbrella of “groin.”
They had completed a similar review seven years ago and included
more recent studies in this update.
As reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the studies
included a total of more than 12,000 athletes ages 12 to 41.
Previous groin injury, higher level of play in their sport, reduced
hip adductor strength, and lower levels of sport-specific training
all increased the risk of groin injury.
There is also evidence that heavier weight, taller height and hip
range of motion are not associated with groin injury, although a
small number of studies have found a connection.
“The process and exercises that one uses to increase the strength of
their hip adductor muscles needs to be guided by a physical
therapist or a strength and conditioning coach,” Whittaker said.
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Not all groin pain is the same nor should be treated the same, she
said.
The exercises and stages of the strength training process will vary
based on your type of pain, your ability and strength, the specific
sport you play, and your injury history, she said.
Athletes with a previous groin injury are at more than twice as
likely to have a re-injury compared to those without a past groin
injury, Whittaker said.
Another review of groin injury studies specifically among adult
soccer players, published in the same issue of BJSM, found that
groin issues may constitute up to 13 percent of all injuries, and
they are twice as common among male soccer players than females.
“Hip/groin injury thereby qualifies among the ‘big four’ together
with thigh, knee and ankle injuries,” said Dr. Markus Walden of
Linkoping University in Sweden, the lead author of the second
review.
“Professionals are probably more susceptible than amateurs owing to
higher load,” he told Reuters Health by email. “Hip joint pathology
might lead to future arthritis, but muscle-tendon injuries rarely
cause long term problems in spite of having a recurrent tendency
during the playing career.”
SOURCES: http://bmj.co/1PbhLTO and http://bmj.co/1bZvpxd British
Journal of Sports Medicine, online April 1, 2015.
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