Adductor Pain. What do?

Pain & Rehab Forum [Moderated]
1

Hey there Docs!

First I just want to say a HUGE thank you for all the amazing pain and rehab content you put out. It’s been immensely helpful for me in keeping me training and instilling a solid dose of pain self efficacy with regard to both training and daily life. I’ve been helped by your work in navigating multiple tweaks and continuing to train, so thank you!

I’m finding myself in a situation currently, though, where I’m not sure what the best course of action is, and was wondering if you might be able to provide a little guidance.

Here’s my current situation:
Due to a series of recurring back tweaks while conventional deadlifting, I decided to try out sumo (not because conventional in inherently injurious, but in the hope that sumo would prove to be more tolerant to training volume). After trying sumo I found that it is significantly stronger, however I seem to have overdone the volume and intensity initially when switching because my groin, adductor, knee on my right leg are pissed off.

I’ve been trying to transition over to sumo for about 5 weeks, splitting my volume between sumo and conventional while slowly tipping the balance toward sumo week-to-week. All in all things have gone pretty well this time around, save for the last week.

Here’s how things are presenting currently, and the reason for my posting here: I’m currently running Powerlifting II and I’m finishing Week 8 today (2nd week of a specialization block). As I’ve moved through these first two weeks of increased intensity symptoms have become progressively worse. Squatting on day 1 was pain free. I was sore to the usual tolerable level during deadlifts on day 2, and by the time I got to beltless squats on day 2 the discomfort had dissipated. Day 3 pause squats were symptomatic, however. The discomfort was tolerable, but unusual as squats are typically not effected - only deadlifts. Today on the day 4 2ct paused deadlifts the pain was intolerable and I was unable to finish working up to my 1@8 or backoff sets, as even lighter weight was creating the same symptomatic response. Going into the session everything felt normal, and during the sets themselves there is no pain. The pain begins after the set is over and dramatically increases for about 20-30 seconds. After about 3-4 minutes the pain returns to a tolerable level. And after about 20-30 min it returns to a mildly uncomfortable baseline.

My main questions are: 1. Do you have any suggestions beyond continuing to try and slowly introduce the new stimulus as I’ve been trying to do?
2. Would it likely be unwise to continue moving forward with the specialization, sport form, and realization blocks of PL2 due to the increase in intensity, which seems to be driving the negative progression of symptoms? Would it be better to move into a less specific phase to allow for a smoother transition to sumo without unnecessarily pissing things off? I’m happy to provide more info if that would be helpful. Thanks again for all your work, and I’m looking forward to your guidance!

2

Hi,

Sorry to hear about this. This is quite common.

I would not be doing any top singles at the moment on sumo deadlifts.

I’d likely bring your stance in a bit to use a more moderate sumo stance, bump up the reps (as high as 8-12), and incorporate an eccentric tempo component (e.g. 3-0-3, 3-0-0, 6-0-0) as described in our recent pain article on the website. So yes, I would not continue pushing forward with intensity on your sumo deadlifts.

You may also benefit from incorporating some direct adductor work (e.g., Copenhagen adductor exercise).

3

Hello,

I have been sumo deadlifting for a little over 2 years now. 18 days ago I started experienced pain along the interior of my right thigh that was aggravated by forceful adduction of my right leg. The pain started 3 days after a sumo DL session and began acutely when I twisted my leg. I found that squatting was just barely intolerable, but that using a narrower stance completely alleviated symptoms, I did a couple squat sessions with a narrow stance and was back to normal squatting after 6 days. However, the sumo DL caused me more trouble. I sumo deadlifted 6 days after as well but had to significantly reduce load and still experienced some pain and an increase in pain for an hour afterward. I suspect this was just a bit more stress than I was ready for, but it still wasn’t that bad. the pain went away later that day. 6 days ago (12 days after onset of pain and 6 days after cessation of pain) I did another deadlift session (sumo and conventional) in which I overshot the top single (@8 became @10) and the next day my life stress spiked way up (both parents had medical emergencies, which are ongoing) and the day after that I awoke to discover that the same pain was back. I had a squat session that day and used a narrower stance to avoid pain, by the end of the day the pain was gone. I have decided to lower RPE by 1 for all lower body exercises this week. Does this seem like a good strategy? Do you think I would benefit from adductor isolation exercises?

P.S. thanks for all the pain & rehab info, as far as i’m aware there just isn’t a better resource than BBM