Groin Strains in Summer Field and Court Sports

Soccer pitches, ultimate fields, and slo-pitch diamonds fill up fast once Winnipeg thaws. With that comes a familiar complaint: a sharp or pulling pain on the inside of the thigh, usually after a hard cut, a reach for a ball, or a big kick. Adductor and groin strains are among the most common injuries in sports that demand rapid change of direction, and they have a frustrating habit of lingering or recurring when they are not managed well.

What Actually Gets Injured

The adductors are the group of muscles on the inner thigh that pull the leg toward the midline and help control the leg during cutting, pivoting, and kicking. In field and court sports the most common injury is a strain of the adductor longus, typically at or near where it attaches to the pelvis.¹ The classic mechanisms are an explosive change of direction, a stretch under load as you reach or lunge, or the powerful eccentric demand of striking a ball.

Groin pain is not always a simple muscle strain, though. The region is anatomically busy, and pain here can involve the hip joint, the pubic bone, or the abdominal wall. A useful clinical framework groups long-standing groin pain into adductor-related, iliopsoas-related, inguinal-related, pubic-related, and hip-joint-related categories.² That is one reason a proper assessment matters — treating everything as a pulled muscle misses the cases that need a different plan.

Why Adductor Strength Is Protective

Here is the finding that should change how athletes think about groin injuries: weak adductors are a risk factor, and stronger adductors are protective. Studies in field-sport athletes have shown that low adductor strength — and a low adductor-to-abductor strength ratio — is associated with a higher risk of groin injury.³ The tissue that keeps failing is often tissue that was under-prepared for the demands of the sport.

The most practical tool to come out of this research is the Copenhagen adduction exercise — a side-lying plank variation where the top leg is supported and you lift and lower against your own bodyweight. A large trial in amateur soccer players found that an adductor-strengthening program built around this exercise reduced groin problems by roughly 40 percent over a season.⁴ It is simple, needs no equipment, and builds exactly the eccentric strength the sport demands.

This connects to a principle we return to often: there are no bad exercises, only too much too soon.⁵ Cutting and kicking are not the problem. Asking an under-conditioned adductor to absorb those forces before it is ready is the problem. The answer is to build the tissue's capacity, not to avoid the movements that sport requires.

The Groin Does Not Work Alone

One of the reasons groin strains recur is that people treat the sore muscle in isolation. The adductors are part of a system that includes the hip rotators, the deep abdominal wall, and the muscles that control the pelvis during single-leg loading. If the hip lacks rotation or the core is not controlling the pelvis during a cut, the adductors end up doing more than their share — and they are the ones that give out.

This is regional interdependence in practice: the site of pain is not always the source of the problem. A thorough plan assesses hip mobility, pelvic control, and how you decelerate and change direction — not just the tender spot on the inner thigh. It is how the Boreal team tends to approach recurring lower-limb complaints, and it is often what separates a strain that resolves from one that keeps coming back.

Returning to Sport

The instinct after a groin strain is to rest until it stops hurting, then jump back into a game. That approach is where a lot of recurrences begin. Pain-free at rest is not the same as ready for a maximal cut. A graded return works far better:

• Restore pain-free range and light adductor loading first.
• Progress adductor strength deliberately — Copenhagen adduction is a well-supported cornerstone — building toward the eccentric demands of the sport.
• Reintroduce running, then change of direction, then sport-specific cutting and kicking as graded steps rather than all at once.
• Manage weekly training volume during the return so load climbs gradually.

Criteria-based progression — moving forward when strength and control milestones are met rather than by the calendar — gives the tissue time to adapt and lowers the chance of a repeat. If you want more on structuring that ramp, our post on managing training load covers the principles.

If a groin strain has slowed down your summer season, the message is encouraging: adductor strains respond well to progressive strengthening, and building adductor capacity is one of the best-supported ways to keep them from returning. The work is not glamorous, but it is reliable.

References

1. Serner A, Tol JL, Jomaah N, et al. Diagnosis of acute groin injuries: a prospective study of 110 athletes. Am J Sports Med. 2015;43(8):1857-1864.
2. Weir A, Brukner P, Delahunt E, et al. Doha agreement meeting on terminology and definitions in groin pain in athletes. Br J Sports Med. 2015;49(12):768-774.
3. Tak I, Engelaar L, Gouttebarge V, et al. Is lower hip range of motion and adductor strength associated with groin injury in athletes? A systematic review. Br J Sports Med. 2017;51(22):1611-1621.
4. Haroy J, Clarsen B, Wiger EG, et al. The Adductor Strengthening Programme prevents groin problems among male football players: a cluster-randomised controlled trial. Br J Sports Med. 2019;53(3):150-157.
5. Gabbett TJ. The training-injury prevention paradox: should athletes be training smarter and harder? Br J Sports Med. 2016;50(5):273-280.