Quick Groin Strain Cure
While back, our Norway U20 National Team goalie came to me complaining about his groin strain.
As goalies often do, he had pulled his groin trying to stop the puck sliding side to side in an overstretched position during practice.
And now that damn thing hurt like hell.
The athlete also told me he was going to camp for the World Championships next week, so this issue had popped up at a very unfortunate time for him.
First, I needed to determine whether we were dealing with a hip flexor or adductor injury.
(I assumed adductor but you never know because some guys have trouble pinpointing or describing the location of their injury)
So I had the athlete perform a single rep of Valslide hip adductions (which you can find on page 48 of ​Bulletproof Hockey Hips). He winced hard on the eccentric and I knew it was indeed his adductor bothering him.
Now, the typical recommendation would be to stretch the affected area immediately after pulling a muscle.
But that will only make things worse.
Instead, you want to mobilize and strengthen it with movements that don't add to the pain.
I had the athlete perform a modified version of the 90 degree adductor mobilization drill (page 28 in Bulletproof Hockey Hips). Because the full mobilization drill would have been too intense for him, we scaled it back to an isometric hold for time. Somewhat uncomfortable but not too painful.
Then, I showed him a very low-intensity adductor strengthening exercise, making sure never to exceed his current painless range of motion.
This was a heavily regressed version of perhaps the most effective movement for strengthening your adductors ever invented which I talk about on page 46 of Bulletproof Hockey Hips.
He'd superset these two movements for four sets each - 15 reps per set on the strengthening drill and 30 seconds on the isometric hold.
Finally, I told the goalie to foam roll the pulled groin area before sending him home.
Next day, I asked how his groin was feeling.
"Much better", came the happy response.
He was back on the ice that afternoon, played in a game a few days later, and traveled to National Team camp as scheduled.
That got me thinking:
Originally, I created Bulletproof Hockey Hips as a hip injury prevention tool.
Using the routines you can find inside is one of the reasons my hockey players experience very few groin injuries - especially compared to other teams.
On the rare occasion one crops up (no off-ice program can prevent them 100%), they hardly ever miss a game.
So clearly, the methods and exercises I reveal in Bulletproof Hockey Hips can be used to rehab such injuries quickly.
For the #1 hockey hip injury prevention and treatment system that works like gangbusters, sprint your way over to:
http://www.Next-Level-Athletics.com/Bulletproof
Yunus Barisik
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