Understanding Sports Hernia May Mean Understanding Adduction

Last year I wrote a piece called Understanding and Training Hip Flexion (www.strengthcoach.com/members/1283.cfm ). The idea was to take a look at muscles of the hip and how these muscles function from a slightly different perspective. This process led me to continue to study the hip and how we look at this critical area. One of the things I pride myself on is continuing to try to learn. Fortunately or unfortunately I feel like the more I learn the more I realize I don't know. An area that has become of increasing interest to me, and to many others in the fields of performance enhancement and physical therapy, is the area of sports hernia. It seems like every week another athlete is having surgery for a 'sports hernia". In order to begin to understand the concept of sports hernia, the first thing we need to do is attempt to describe a sports hernia. In the technical sense, the sports hernia is a tear in the lower abdominal wall in the inguinal area. Unlike a classic inguinal hernia there is rarely a significant tear that results in a bulge. Rather there is a gradual onset of pain in the lower abdominal area, usually beginning as groin pain. . . . (to read the remainder of this article, please log in below.)