Groin strain - not recovering

Hi,

4 weeks ago I pulled a muscle in my groin (inside of the thigh). I stayed off it for 2 weeks after it and have seen a doctor and physio. On the physio’s advice I’ve been stretching and keeping the muscle warm, however I’m still not seeing any improvement. It doesn’t hurt when I walk only really if I tweak it by a sudden direction change of which I’m trying to avoid doing. I’ve stopped playing football (soccer) and doing sprint training although I have been exercising my upper body and using weights and hand bike cardio machines to stay in shape.

I’m going slightly mad at not being able to sprint etc… I saw my physio on Thursday of last week and asked whether I could run (jog). He said light jogging shouldn’t be a problem, so I did a very slow 20 minute jog on Friday of last week and I’ve noticed an increase in pain since then. I’m hoping I haven’t set my recovery back as I was just doing what the physio said to do.

My question is, when am I likely to be fully recovered? Is there something above that I shouldn’t be doing or is there something else I can be doing to recover. I’ve been doing stretches that the physio has given me, but still no improvement. My main problem is the thought of not being able to exercise really gets to me because I’ve recently got to the best shape I’ve ever been in and no activity at all fills me with dread that I’ll gain weight again and the last 4 months since January have been for nothing and I’ll have to start again!

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Craig

Sounds to me like you need to be strengthening. Including strengthening exercises will greatly reduce the liklihood of a return of your symptoms once you return to sport. If running is causing you pain (or resulting in increased pain after) then you need to stop.

The main areas to strengthen are your groin muscles, and pelvic stabilisation muscles. Once you have worked on strengthening for a couple of weeks you can attempt to run again but the same rules apply - any increase in stymptoms and you need to stop.

I have some strengthening exercises which I can send you via email if you are interested. Let me know.

Rachael

Thanks for that, if you could send me some strengthening exercises that would be great!