If you’re groin rehab is squeezes, banded adduction and Copenhagen’s, you’ve fallen to the reiteration effect of social media. I know this because it happened to me.
The reiteration effect creates a bias where the more you see or hear something, the more you believe it to be true. Because we spend so much time on social media, these apps have a major influence on how we think. When I see posts about groin pain, the vast majority are about 3 things. These seem to be the what everyone does to treat groin pain:
- Hip adduction:abduction strength ratio
- Groin strengthening exercises
- Hip mobility drills
Groin pain is rarely a groin problem!
Unless someone has an actual adductor strain, groin strength and mobility is not the solution. Side note – adductor strains are over-diagnosed, but that’s for another day.
A lot of athletes who suffer from groin pain play multidirectional sports. Hockey, soccer, basketball, rugby. Yet, we rarely look at cutting or change-of-direction mechanics. A recent study found that by changing an athletes cutting mechanics, they were able to reduce pain and increase groin strength.
Take a global view when evaluating groin pain
I hate being super cliche, but when someone comes to you with groin pain look at it from a 10,000ft view. Social media has made us so hyper-focused on groin strength and hip mobility that we’re missing the root cause.
In my opinion, the biggest piece that we’ve all been missing is how athletes change direction. Because cutting is very frontal plane, the groin is taking up a lot of the slack from other areas that are lacking. It could be the trunk leaning too far, it could be the ankle not flexing enough. By solving these issues, not only will you help them feel better but you’ll also help them perform better.
Strengthening the groin can be helpful, solving the problem is better
The biggest risk factor of groin injury is a previous groin injury. Probably because we aren’t solving the issue with groin strength and hip mobility.
Finding and treating the cause of groin pain will help your clients so much more. They will be thankful that you helped them get rid of nagging groin pain!