Risk factors for sporting hip and groin injuries

Hip and groin injuries constitute around 10-20% of all injuries on the sporting field and can sometimes be long-term, debilitating conditions.  Field sports have a higher injury rate due to the actions such as kicking, twisting and turning placing high loads through the hip and pelvis. The following systematic review identified 7 high quality studies (6 of which were prospective) examining risk factors for hip and groin injuries in field-based sports.

The included studies examined athletes participating in Soccer, Rugby League  and Australian Rules Football. Higher incidences of hip and groin injuries in have been reported in these sporting populations. 

The authors found 11 predictive risk factors in total and grouped them into modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors. They identified adductor weakness and previous groin injury as the most significant risk factors respectively which correlates with previous systematic reviews. Other significant risk factors include older age, higher body mass and  decreased total hip ROM.

> From: Ryan et al., Br J Sports Med 48 (2014) 1089-1096. All rights reserved to BMJ Publishing Group Ltd.. Click here for the Pubmed summary.