The hip flexor muscle group lifts your leg upwards, as bringing your knee to your chest or bending at the waist. The flexor group involves several muscles, but only two are usually involved in hip flexor strains:
- the iliacus and psoas major muscles, also known as your iliopsoas or
- the rectus femoris, which is part of your quadriceps.
These two muscles attach to your hip bones resulting in groin pain. A frequent injury or groin pain that doesn’t go away is a sign of something else going on, requiring an evaluation of your situation.
Causes of Hip Flexor Strains:
- Overuse during running, jumping, bicycling, karate, skating.
- Sitting for long hours resulting in the hip flexors become too tight combined with hip flexion beyond the tightness results in a tear.
- Anterior tilt in the pelvis.
- Trauma, like a sudden fall.
Symptoms of a Hip Flexor Strain:
- Pain in the groin or front of hip.
- Sudden pain.
- Pain or increase in intensity of pain when you lift your thigh toward your chest.
- Pain with stretching hip flexor muscles.
- Pain with touching the front of your hip.
- Pain with getting out of a car.
- Potential swelling or bruising in the groin area.
I approach treating your hip flexor condition to your presentation, which involves:
- Analyzing your posture – do you have anterior tilt of the hip?
- Discussing potential lifestyle dynamics impacting the hip joint.
- Muscle testing the muscles comprising the hip for weakness and pain.
- Targeting effected muscles, releasing motor points, trigger points and relaxing the fascia
- Providing exercises to continue treatment success between acupuncture treatments.
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