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Suzanna, an expert
athletic trainer out of Venice Beach, California, is a regular
contributor to TENNIS CLUB BUSINESS. You can reach Suzanna on
LinkedIn or by email at sixftlion@gmail.com. In August 2014 we reviewed
her new book "The Athlete's Simple Guide to a Plant-Based Lifestyle."
Your athletic performance and
life well-being are often limited by your most significant weaknesses,
mental or physical.
For the physical weaknesses your
major goal should be to find them and improve them as much as
possible to prevent future overuse injuries and to improve your
performance.
Often, tennis players have unilateral
weakness (on one side, often on the non-dominant side) of the
hip abductors—the muscles on the outside of the hip (gluteus
medius and gluteus minimum) that are responsible for moving your
leg to the side (abducting). You need this motion during the
side movements and changing the directions.
With this weakness comes overactive
and tight groin (aka adductors—the muscles on the inside
of your thighs). You may not feel that your groin is tight until
you get injured. Or when you start doing exercises that are challenging
to the groin, you realize how tight you are. For example the
kettlebell windmill from the previous post is a perfect example
of diagnosing your adductors.
A Tight
Groin
The hips are extremely important
for every athlete, and especially tennis players. Even non-athlete
benefit from strong and evenly balanced hips.
Most of the muscles that originate
movement connect to the hips. The hips are connecting the upper
and lower body, and need to provide strength, stability and flexibility
to both halves. So if your hips are misaligned, the movement
is not going to be correct—your knees have to compensate
with a changed movement pattern and a new dysfunction will develop
there, or in your ankles.
In similar way, if for example
one hip is slightly higher then the other, then the shoulders
that are directly above the hips compensate and are off balance.
Then when you hit thousands of tennis strokes with a misaligned
shoulder, it is easy to see that it will cause stress on surrounding
muscles and tendons. And over time, little by little, you might
get a nagging shoulder problem.
The hip equilibrium needs to
be in all planes – from the front and the side; and both
hips need to be at the same height as well. If your hips are
off balance in one plane, over time more impurities will sneak
in to your posture and more injuries into your fitness. Re-read
this excellent post on the simplest injury prevention rule.
Besides strengthening of your
glutes, develop a habit of stretching your groin (adductors)
with this simple and passive stretch. Passive is good for you
because you do not need to do anything, no pulling, struggling,
pushing… just lay down, breathe, relax and let the gravity
do the work. There should not be any excuses to not to do it
regularly. It is so simple.
Simple
Passive Stretch for a Tight Groin |
