Some groin injuries are unavoidable (like when you have Cameron Smith pulling your legs apart!) but here are some things you can do to prevent over-loading injuries.
Top tips for minimising your risk of a groin injury:
- STRETCH, STRETCH, STRETCH (or something similar)! Tightness through your hips significantly increases the risk of overloading your groin resulting in a strain. Try stretching your hamstrings, glutes, deep hip rotators and TFL muscle.
- Warm up. Not only before games but also before training. Think about what movements you are required to do during your sport/exercise and mimic that. Build into it. Start with straight line movements, build up speed then add in some lateral movements (leg swings across your body for example) then add some load. Lateral/diagonal lunges before adding some speed in the form of change of direction running.
Here are some great and simple ideas from Competitor Spot: http://competitorspot.com/soccer-warm-up-guide/
- Strong glutes, core musculature and quads reduce load on your groin area. Weakness in these muscles can result in your adductors (the inside of your thigh muscles) having to do more work, leading to overuse injuries.
- Invest the time. Weekend warriors are the most at risk. Prepare your body with some training prior to the season starting. This will ensure your muscles effectively adapt to the load of your chosen sport/exercise.
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