Hip adductor muscle forces during strength training and rehabilitation exercises

Key Points

1. The Copenhagen Adduction Exercise proves to be the most potent stimulus for adductor activation and muscle force isolation.

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BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE

The hip adductors are crucial for athletic performance. This complex muscle group contributes to pelvic control in single leg stance and helps to generate propulsive forces during lateral, vertical, and horizontal oriented movements (1,2). The activation patterns and biomechanical role of the hip adductors changes based on the position of the pelvis and femur (3). Exercise selection and dynamic correspondence for training the hip adductors is typically multi-faceted and needs to be specific to the individual and their sport demands.

Adductor related groin pain and injury is a significant contributor to time loss in major sports such as soccer, ice hockey, and American football (4). The authors sought to examine individual hip adductor muscle forces in common exercises, rank the movements based on peak muscle forces and stratify exercises into three tiers based on the magnitude of muscle force. A secondary aim was to characterize hip adductor muscle fiber lengths, velocities and activation ranges underlying the estimated muscle forces.

Adductor related groin pain and injury is a significant contributor to time loss in major sports such as soccer, ice hockey, and American football.

There are many other effective methods of loading the adductors including the CAE-short and sliding lateral lunge, however, the CAE-long is still king for the adductors.

METHODS

• 15 injury-free individuals (nine males, six females) with sporting backgrounds and at least six months of recent strength training were recruited from a university, student, and community gym population.

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