A 29 year old female tears hamstrings and groin while doing splits on a slippery floor. Her legs slide out (weak adductors) and she stretches further than anticipated (ouch). Injury is now 2 months old and has not gotten better. It is unusual for a new patient come to me with a fresh injury (sub-acute) of this type. More usual is the nagging hip or groin issue and upon questioning the patient might tell me "I think this was this leg that I tore my hamstrings and groin years ago" type of scenario. Often time injuries never fully heal and become an underlying factor to the next injury.

As a Sports Chiropractor I am well equipped to help her with this issue. I check her leg length and find the right side is short by 5/8 of an inch. Tenderness in the groin with muscle adhesions, tenderness in the right piriformis muscle under the gluts, and tenderness. Muscle findings: weak adductor muscles, (the muscles that pull and hold the legs together) and weak hamstrings, tight R quad and tight L glut. She also had concurrent joint misalignments; right SI joint misalignment (with tenderness at the R sits bone, where she first felt the tear), right pubis bone misalignment (accounts for the groin tear) and L 3-4 misalignments (accounts for the adductor and Hamstring weakness).

I started with light, than increasingly deeper muscle stripping of the hamstrings and quads, which was painful but gave her some relief. I did some light to deep work on her gluts and piriformis, and more of the same in the groin area. This work gave her some relief, she could move her leg a little better. Next I adjusted the areas above. These adjustments turned on (amplified nerve innervations) to the hamstrings and adductors, that is to say they became active, (tested stronger). By the time I was done the injury was 70-80% better, and the patient gave me a big smile. I love my job.

The big thing for her was to learn to stretch her quads. I showed her how to do this with a foam roller and gave her my deepest quad stretches. I will include these moves in future videos. Until then, Stay Well.

Tags: groin sprain, torn hamstring