Groin Anatomy and Biomechanics

Abstract

The groin is an anatomic region adjacent to the inguinal ligament, where abdomen, pelvis, and lower limbs meet, the key to core stability. Groin pain is responsible for 27 % of all con-tusions in soccer or 12 % in American football but the diagnosis of groin pain is unclear in 30 % of cases. The differential diagnostic should take under consideration muscle tears, enthesopathies, bursities, nerve entrapments, stress fractures, hip joint diseases, inflamma-tory conditions, hernias, and referred pain. Muscle attachments of rectus, adductors, and gracilis are firmly interdigitated, and their pathology is strongly interconnected. Muscle imbalance is a well-recognized risk factor for injury or development of hernia. Thirty-nine percent of soccer players with symptomatic sportsman hernia presented adductor pain. The insertion of adductor longus to the sym-physis pubis is composed of two distinct layers, the superficial one much thicker, which may explain beneficial effects of surgi-cal decompression through partial adductor tenotomy. In cases of complete tear of adduc-tors, the operative reinsertion should be taken under consideration. New technologies – PRP, stem cells, and others – probably should be much widely introduced in early stages.