Groin Area Tendon Strain?

[bmanCO]

Since about mid-July I've been dealing with a strain in my groin area that has kept getting re-injured, mostly due to my stupidity trying to get back to squatting heavy too soon a couple of times now. It started out as discomfort located approximately where my inner thigh meets my pelvis, but progressed into a sharp pain. It usually just starts out as discomfort at a certain weight, then eventually turns into pain, which gets worse the longer I squat in a given workout. I've been really impatient and have tried going to heavier weights a couple of times when it was feeling better and I thought it was healed, but this has just led to re-injury.

Based on what I've read here and elsewhere, it seems to me that this might be a tendon strain in my groin area, and not a muscle belly injury. It doesn't bother me with any other lifts, as I've been able to deadlift and clean with no pain for the most part (there was only pain deadlifting one time after I tried going heavy again initially). And it generally doesn't bother me during the day at all, though I tried running last week and that seemed to exacerbate it as well. I'm over my impatient stupidity, and am ready to give this as long as it needs to fully heal. What would you advise for recovery from this type of injury?

[veryhrm]

I've attempted to gather as much information as I could from older threads, but I'd like to get a clearer idea of exactly what I should be doing to properly rehab what I think is an adductor injury. I'm a 22 year old male who's been doing Starting Strength for approximately two months now. About a month ago, while squatting, I started to notice some significant discomfort in my upper inner thigh on the right side where the leg connects to the pelvis. I only feel it and the very bottom of the squat, especially when driving up. Being stupid and inexperienced I decided to push through it, but it got worse over the course of a week and eventually became a sharp pain that was preventing me from completing sets.

I took a week off of squatting and then tried to go heavy again, but I stupidly ended up exacerbating it further. I proceeded to not squat for two weeks, then over the course of the last week I started to do some very light sets for high reps to try and increase bloodflow (but only on workout days, so I wasn't following the Starr protocol), which felt fine, and didn't cause any pain. I decided to test the waters with some heavier weights yesterday, but the pain is still there, albeit lesser than it was before.

The pain only bothers me when squatting. When I stupidly exacerbated it the first time there was a bit too much pain to do deadlifts and cleans, but now I can do those without any issues. Now I seriously want to commit to rehabbing this so it doesn't become a nagging issue. My biggest question is can I use the Starr protocol for this particular injury at this stage? And if not, should I just revert to squatting with a narrow stance and toes pointed out less and wait for it to heal? Or do you have another suggestion? Thanks a ton.

How confident are you of your form ?
My guess is that it's probably a form issue (like moving your knees around in the bottom or not keeping your knees out or bouncing off the adductors in a weird way).

The fact that at the end you say you want to "revert to squatting with a narrow stance" sends up various other red flags since it implies you already did it at some point.

Anyway, just post some videos in the Technique forum if you can. Starr rehab isn't meant for things that come on slowly as you described here. It's more for acute/abrupt injuries esp. to muscle bellies.

I'm not supremely confident in my form but I think it's solid for the most part. I don't feel like I've ever had much trouble shoving my knees out at the bottom. I may have been taking too wide of a stance to begin with though. I mentioned the narrow stance squat because I've seen Rip advise it to others with adductor injuries, as it's a way to take the adductor out of the movement so you can let things heal.

Still, post a form check.

If working through it doesn't make it better and taking time off didn't make it better, i think it's reasonable to check if maybe there's something you should be doing differently about the motion.

(also, "revert" means going back to. If you haven't squatted narrow before then it would be "resort to" :-) )

.

[adivin]

I found this old thread during a search. The original post fits my situation exactly. Not much response to this one, or resolution. I'm still looking for answers. My particular situation is going on 5 weeks.

[Nate9]

I found this old thread during a search. The original post fits my situation exactly. Not much response to this one, or resolution. I'm still looking for answers. My particular situation is going on 5 weeks.

Knee slide, fix that with TUBOW

[adivin]

Explain

[Dag]

He's saying that poor knee positioning during the squat MAY be the cause of your tendon pain. I only know this because your post caused me to search the forum as I have similar, but not the same, issues. I don't know if it's the correct answer to your question but I'm pretty sure that's what was meant

[Tom K]

Knee slide, fix that with TUBOW

This. And post a video of your squat.

[adivin]

Assuming I had knee slide, how would that put additional stress on the adductors? Doesn't knee slide actually reduce hip drive and involvement of the posterior chain?

[Nate9]

The hip flexors are the rectus femoris, the sartorius, and the tensor fascia latae, only the first one of which has any knee extension function. But in this capacity the rectus femoris is using its distal function, and is thus not a "hip flexor". We don't actively "flex" our hips when we squat, any more than we use our lats to lower the bar when we press overhead. But when you allow your knees to travel forward at the bottom of a squat, the distal tension pulls against the proximal insertion of the RF and makes your ASIS sore.

That's all i know, had the same problem read all about it on the forums and fixed.
Also how can you be sure it's your adductors?

[adivin]

That's all i know, had the same problem read all about it on the forums and fixed.
Also how can you be sure it's your adductors?

This is great information. I'm going to look into this further. Thank you for this post.