Today’s article is about the groin and why it’s causing you problems.
What is the groin?
The groin is your upper inner thigh. It is closely related to your hip adductors, which are the five inner thigh muscles that lie in between your quads and hamstrings.
These five adductors originate from the pubic and sitting bones. Two are short adductors – the pectineus and the adductor brevis – and attach at the back of the upper femur (thighbone). Two are longer – the adductor longus and adductor magnus – and attach lower down the femur. The longest – the gracilis – attaches below the knee, to the upper tibia (shinbone).
Actions of the adductors
These are many and varied:
- When they contract, the adductors squeeze your thighs together—this is known as hip adduction.
- They assist the hip flexors (psoas and iliacus) and abductors (glutes and TFL) in flexing, extending and rotating your hip.
- The gracilis assists the hamstrings in knee flexion and stabilization.
- They co-contract with the hip abductors to stabilize the hips and pelvis.
Why is your groin tight?
Probably because you’ve done a whole lot of activities that require you to contract your adductors and comparatively little stretching. This, like most muscular imbalances, unfortunately, is exacerbated by riding, in which you draw your thighs towards each other to control the bike and never have to open them very wide or take them through their full range of motion.
Additionally, your adductors tighten up in much the same way as the hip flexors do from sitting too much, and you may well do or have done sports when you were younger that required running and changing direction quickly, without paying too much attention to your recovery.
What range of flexibility should you have?
Here is a simple test you can do. Lie on your back with butt against the wall and your legs straight up. Allow your legs to fall open (abduct) while maintaining contact with the wall. You should have at least a 90-degree angle between your legs.
Overly tight adductors can contribute to pain and dysfunction in the lower back, hips, knees, and ankles, and can make you more susceptible to groin injuries.
Yoga and the groin
Many riders don’t realize that their groin is tight until they start practicing yoga. In many ways, it can act as a diagnostic tool. In our sessions, we focus as much on hip abduction (pulling your thighs apart) as on hip adduction (drawing them together). I've written before about hip openers, but this is a fairly general term.
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