Long-term adductor tear issue

Pain & Rehab Forum [Moderated]
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I tore my adductor playing 5-a-side football (soccer) 4-5years ago. Despite not being able to walk for 3-4 days afterwards, I just saw it as a strain and didn’t get it looked at. A week or two later I was back squatting and never thought about it again for 2-3 years. I also quit playing sport in that time so squatting was my only real form of exercise for it.

It wasn’t until I started coaching youth soccer that problems started to appear again. First off a couple of little twinges that didn’t concern me much until I had a proper feel around and noticed a hard lump half the size of cricket ball at the top of my thigh - this may have been there for a while, I just never tended to feel around that area much or check the aesthetics of my legs. It’s a chronic tear/full tear of the adductor longus , and I have seen a physio but she never seems to show much concern, just gives me a couple of resistance band exercises to strengthen the area. I have gone off learning on my own though and I worked up to adducting 20lbs for a couple sets of 40-50 on a cable machine. For a while I did trap bar deadlifts and very narrow leg presses whilst doing the cable adductions and other rehab stuff. I tried introducing squats again as part of me feels that when I didn’t know i’d even had a serious injury, squats were what made me feel that way! Messing around with my form though I felt a little something yesterday, no discomfort though so I continued on with my 3x5, and even did some sideways running and jumping at the end as part of my rehab. It feels strained again this morning though.

Now I’m at a crossroads. Do I persevere with squats, putting this down to another bit of bad luck, or do I do something else? I have no powerlifting interests but my ultimate goal would be overall full body strength/muscle, and be able to casually coach youth soccer without issues.

Thanks guys. Love your content.

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Hi,

How was this specifically diagnosed as a “chronic full tear”?

It sounds like you can tolerate a fair amount of movements/training, but it’s not surprising that it feels a bit “strained” in the aftermath if the capacity has not been built up. We can’t say much about your individual situation without more details in a one-on-one consultation, but based on what you describe I think a bit of experimentation to find a tolerable entry point would be worthwhile, before building up from there. You probably just started out with a bit too much, too soon. I would not be starting you out with squatting 3 x 5, nor would I be putting sideways running and jumping all in one session with the lifting right off the bat.

We describe our general approaches to rehab in these two articles:

If you need further individualized guidance, a consult with our rehab team would be a great idea. I am confident they’d be able to get you on track. They’re available through the website.

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