3 Groin Stretches that will Change your Life.

The groin is a sensitive area for many reasons. It’s where the magic happens of course. But it’s also an incredibly important area for healthy movement. 

A tight and weak groin will limit the range of motion in your pelvis and hips, reduce strength and explosiveness and make daily movement feel wonky. 

And it’s damn uncomfortable when your inner thighs feel tight all the time. 

Worry no more, dear reader. In this article, I’ll share 3 stretches you can start using today to open up your groin and get you back into action (whatever that means for you!). 

How to stretch the groin

When most people think about stretching a muscle, they think about getting into a resting position and holding a static stretch.

This is not wrong but it's only one type of stretching. For many people, it might not be the best method.

Learning what type of stretching your body responds to requires some experimentation.

Every body is different and a stretch that completely changes how you move can be useless to your neighbor Bob.

The first step is to know the different types of stretching. Traditionally the main categories include dynamic, static and isometric stretching. I also like to add a fourth to help simplify things - weighted stretching.

You can stretch your groin in one of these categories or multiple. You can also integrate elements of one with another.

There are many things to try so if regular passive stretching doesn’t work for you, don’t fret! You have a lot more exploration to do.

A word on Stretching with a Groin Strain or Groin Pull

Acute injuries like a groin strain or a groin pull don’t need stretching. They need rest.

Unless you’re a trained athlete or working with a professional, I don’t recommend you stretch or exercise with a groin injury until it heals. This will only aggravate the injury and likely delay the healing process.

If your goal is to prevent future acute groin injuries, this is a worthwhile pursuit but your body cannot make flexibility gains on top of an injury.

If your pain pattern is more chronic and is not a result from some traumatic injury or accident then my advice would be the opposite.

Chronic pain patterns don’t respond well to rest and avoidance is a slippery slope.

Movement and pain education are key interventions in overcoming chronic pain patterns so the quicker you get moving and learning, the better.

Dynamic Groin Stretch - Side Leg Raises 

The muscles that surround the groin are the adductors so this will be the target muscle group in each stretch.

Dynamic stretches like the side leg raise are a great way to warm up the groin before workouts or sporting activities. They are also a great way to wake up the body in the morning when time might be limited.

Dynamic stretches like this may not be the best way to build flexibility. But they are an excellent tool to maintain the flexibility that you have.

If you don’t use it, you lose it. So when you don’t have the time or energy to perform the more labor-intensive methods below, you can do a few sets of these to maintain your gains.

Kneeling Groin Stretch (Static and Isometeric Method)

This stretch is a great example of how you can incorporate multiple stretching methods into the same exercise sequence.

You can start this stretch by simply hanging out in the position to see how your inner thigh responds.

If there is an intense stretch just from being in the position then practice this for a few weeks. Once that gets more comfortable, you can do a couple of things.

The first is just to go deeper into the stretch. Spread your leg further or sit lower to feel the stretch in a deeper position.

The second option is to add an isometric element to the stretch. Contract the inner thigh muscles you’re stretching by pushing into the foot. Hold that contraction for 3-5 seconds and then see if you can go deeper into the stretch.

Try both methods to see what helps you get lower. The deeper into the stretch you get with comfort, the more flexible your inner thighs and groin become.

Weighted Groin Stretch - Wide Squats

The ultimate path to a more flexible and resilient groin is getting stronger in foundational positions like the squat.

When muscles lengthen under load like this, they not only get more flexible but they also get stronger. True flexibility comes from strength and the stronger you get, the easier it is to get more flexible.

To exaggerate groin flexibility, I recommend you perform a wide squat which will emphasize the lengthening of the adductors.

When your goal is more flexibility and more resilience, you don’t want to use too much weight, too soon. Start light and focus on increasing range rather than weight.

Closing Thoughts & Programming

You can do these exercises as a routine or by themselves. I don’t recommend you do the wide squats any more than 1-2x a week though.

Even though you’re using low weights, squats will fatigue your nervous system more than the other two stretching methods which you can do everyday if you’d like.

Flexibility training is not immune to dogma like many other fitness modalities. My advice is to not take any one method as gospel and to experiment with various practices to see what works for your body.

The more I learn about flexibility, the more amazed I am to discover how different each person’s demands are in opening up their bodies.

A big mistake is to expect the exact same thing to work for you as it did for someone else.