The Less Boring Adductor Group

This next muscle post is going to be a little different. I am going to tackle a group of muscles as opposed to an individual muscle. The main reason for this is because i get bored easy, and i don't want to bore anyone else either. This group is the hip adductor group. Each one of the adductor muscles are important, however, i don't always know what adductor i am working on, so i usually address them in my practice as just the adductors. They are really important muscles to athletes, such as football players and sprinters who requires fast, sudden directional changes.

The hip adductor muscles are the muscles in your inner thigh and groin. They consist of 5 muscles. The pectineus, adductor brevis and adductor longus are known as the short adductors which go from the pelvis to the thigh bone. The gracilis and adductor magnus are the long adductors which go from the pelvis to the knee.

The function of the adductors, as the name gives away, adducts the leg or brings it towards the midline of the body. They also stabilize and control the legs and also help in medially rotating the leg and flexing the hip.

The adductors can be overworking as well and sometimes underworking. The pectineus muscle sometimes will be overworking for bigger stronger hip flexors like the psoas and that can cause groin strains in athletes. If you stretch the adductors out and they are compensating and stabilizing the body, without strengthening the underworking muscle, you will leave the body unstable and more prone to injury. Another option is the body will tighten those adductors up again, because it needs that stability and the pain to return.

In athletes i have worked on, the adductors are a huge player in keeping them healthy and functioning at their best! If you, or someone you know, have been having groin pain, i believe NKT is the best way to find out what's going on. Find an NKT practitioner near you!