OUCH Groin Pull

Those are three words we never want to utter...

Here is an Atomic Tip for you, straight from the MMA guys. Work your inner and outer thigh muscles. These will help all of your leg strikes, including that Knee Strike that we talked about last week.

Sure, you can do that with those machines that the commercial gyms always seem to put in the women's section with pink pads, or you can use good old fashioned cast iron. While nothing is a 100% defense against a groin pull, the key here is a combination of stretching and strengthening in a balanced fashion.

In true traditional strongman fashion, if you can combine two or three things into one exercise, then do it. Do it intensely and save time and energy for other exercises or skills.

http://www.atomicathletic.com/store/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=IBC

First: Make sure to do a light warm-up. Just because it is winter and you are training in an unheated garage, doesn't mean you can skip a warm-up that gets the blood flowing and heart pumping.

Second: Light stretching that includes really getting the legs, low back, groin and torso. However, you are not in a yoga class, so don't take a year to do this, because you are going to move right into the weightlifting exercise.

Third: Weightlifting exercises with the Iron Boots. Add these toward the end of your routine, after the heavy lifts, like squats or power cleans. I like to do the Inner Thigh moves first, because the more sets I do, the better the leg split range of motion I get. I don't use any weight, just an empty pair of Iron Boots, the link is above, if you don't know what they are. Basically, you lay on your back, aim your straight up at the ceiling and split. So I would do a 5 x 5 alternating sets with a 3 x 10 of the outer thigh movement that has you laying on your side and raising your straight leg. The inner thigh exercise is really done slowly, almost as if it is a stretch, with the weight helping out. It is certainly NOT explosive.

These are a great exercise to add into your Workout With A Backpack routine as well.

http://www.atomicathletic.com/store/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=ROPEBP

Live strong,
Roger LaPointe

PS Mr. America John Grimek did these moves too. So like most useful weightlifting exercises, we can once again say, “There is nothing new under the sun.”