In this video I'm going to show you how to use a massage gun to help free up a Pulled Groin muscle.
My name is Dr. David Middaugh, I'm a specialist physical therapist at El Paso manual physical
therapy. This channel is dedicated to helping people stay healthy, active and mobile,
while avoiding unnecessary injections, surgery and pain medication.
Please consider subscribing to this channel so that you don't miss out on any of the helpful
videos that we post each and every single week. So let's get on with this massage gun tutorial
on freeing up your poor groin muscles. Now the groin muscles they attach right against your
body where your thigh meets your body right in this area and the run all the way down to
right below your knee right about your knee joint on the inside of your thigh.
So in order to free that up, we're going to target that but we need to warm up the front of the thigh
and the front of the hip area first because those muscles tend to be tight and stiff along
with the groin muscles. So let's start with that. First, I'm going to turn on my massage again. Oh,
and I forgot to tell you, this massage is going it's my favorite one. I've reviewed many here on
this channel. This is the one that is my current favorite. It's the percussion massage gun,
I put a link in the description down below this video so that if you want to go get one
yourself from Amazon, you can use that link to get one it's an affiliate link.
So we get a little tiny cut. If you decide to purchase one I any gun will work you can pick one
up at your local sporting goods store. You know, Walmart department stores should have one of these
as well. And they all are very similar. This is my favorite for a few reasons, you have to check
out the video on why like this gun, just wanted to give you a plug on why I'm using this gun.
So I'm going to switch it on right here and power it on the lowest setting to start off.
And I'm going to just start to go from where my hip muscle attaches to my from where my
thigh muscle attaches to my hip up here, down to right above my knee. Now you just want to stay
off of any bones with this, you want to be on muscle only. You don't want to go in the
private area either on yourself whether you're male or female, this gun is not designed to go
on any genitalia. So you need to stay directly on the muscles the whole time.
Once you go up and down here, a few passes, you really don't need more than a minute. What I found
in using the massage gun is it feels good for a lot of people to go more than a minute,
but you get diminishing returns after about a minute. So once you go up and down for a minute,
you're not going to soften up the muscle that much more of you find a knot or a painful spot
a tender spot like for me about right here, it begins to get a little bit tender, it's not bad
at all today, I feel fantastic actually. But if you have a nonspecific, you've been
exercising a lot, if you had a groin injury recently, you're probably going to have a
lot of knots. Free those up, you can hang out on that spot and just press into it, you can turn up
the intensity if you want a bit and just move around it make little circles go up and down,
go side to side, just get all the different angles, you might even turn the gun a bit
to get the tissue from a different angle, rather than just the same angle the whole time.
And that helps it a lot you can also interchange the head of the gun,
I seem to be able to do everything just fine with this some but some people do prefer the more
direct tips that are harder. This one has a little bit of a give. But this one works
best for me. So I'm just going to go up and down here on the outside of my thigh now.
So I've moved from the front of my thigh. And I'm going to go to the outside part of
my thigh and in the hip as well. And just go up and down several passes, find the tender spot
and free that up. So for me, the tender spot that I encountered most was right up here at my hip.
And this is especially important because if you're suffering from a groin injury, a Pulled Groin,
these abductor muscles Abductor, they oppose the groin muscles which are the adductor muscles a,
so be instead of d for the outer muscles and then double D instead
of BD for the for the inner muscles. Once you tenderize a spot, you should
find that it gets a little less tender. And like I said, you can go different angles on the tissue
go up and down and all around. And then you're ready to move off that part of
your leg. So I've done the front I've done the outside. Now I'm going to go into the groin.
Now to do this. Let me just pause that for a second. You should position your leg this way.
Sit up in an area where you can get your leg on to a table or a chair just like I am on the bed
works really well if you're doing this at home, and you need to make sure you're aware of where
everything is. So for me I'm not going to go any higher than this spot right here so that
I don't injure myself to turn on the device here and it started the lowest speed I'm going
to start by my knee right where it's soft. See right here, it's hard, that's the bone.
And if you go on the bone, the gun just bounces on it, if it's tender, it's going to hurt. But
once you're on the muscle, it doesn't bounce on it, it sinks into the tissue.
So make sure you're on the soft tissue. And notice how I flipped my handle here, I'm using two hands,
I could just go like this if I wanted to. But I just feel like I get more leverage. holding
the gun this way, I could also do it this way. Or this way, just using two hands any way you
want, is going to be a little more forceful on your muscle, I'm just going to slowly moved my
way up and down a more on the front part of my thigh. And I'm going to work more to the back
part of my thigh here in a second, and just go right up to that spot that I told you to earlier,
you're looking for tender spots. And if you find the tender spot, especially where you pulled it,
you can hang out there and just move it around little by little
to tenderize it just like a tenderize on the outside, I literally think of tenderizing meat.
If you've ever done that before, you're pretty much just hammering the meat and it slowly
gets softer and softer and softer. And when you cook it like that it's pretty tender,
it's pretty soft, the meat almost falls apart. And what you're trying to do here is loosen up a stiff
part of the muscle, you're trying to free up that stiffest part of the muscle, so find
the knot, and just loosen it up. Just like so. So for me, I get a little bit stiff right here,
just going to put in a little more pressure. And let's turn up the intensity a bit, I'm at 10 now.
And that works pretty well to free it up. And once you tenderize this part of the mostly founding
Nazi, you need to work out with the gun. Next, what we're going to do is go through all three
sections again, but this time with movement, when you move your leg, you move the muscle
under your skin, and you can begin to get on those tender spots a little differently as well.
Now that you've tenderize it, it should feel easier to move. So here's what it looks like
for the front of your thigh, you're going to get the machine on,
put it on the setting that you like, I'm going to go about 25% of a full intensity. And as I'm back
on my thigh, I'm just going to begin to bend and straighten my knee as I go up and down.
Now some people will find that they have a tender spot with their leg at a certain position,
maybe this position or this position, you can hang out there, what I would
make sure that you do is continuously move at some points. So in other words,
I'm moving up and down continuously with my knee here as I move the massage going up and down.
But let's say like right there, I actually do have a little bit of a tender spot.
And I feel it most when my knees straight. So I'm going to hold my knees straight for
just a moment and dig on that same spot that I had earlier. Because I feel differently now. So
this really helps to free up that muscle from a different angle from a different
muscle position than it was earlier I was relaxed Are there no muscles a little contracted.
Once you've gone through that, and we do the same thing for the outer hip. And for this one, we're
going to have to get on your side just like so. So after hip and thigh, it's going to be like
this, you're going to move your leg out and then just like so.
And find any knots, any spots that you feel, you need to work out a little bit better,
it's probably going to be the same ones as you found earlier. Like for me, it's
right in here. It's not as tender as it was before. But now I'm going to move it
move my hip joint, well I dig in there with a gun, it's going to get a different angle on here.
Actually, let's turn up the intensity a bit. Let's go 50%
There. I love the controls in this gun, there's so easy to to maneuver, it's very responsive.
There we go, I found another spot that I hadn't quite gotten earlier.
I'm just going to bounce my hand on it right there too. It feels like it,
I can get it out a little easier as well. There we go.
Now once you've finished about a minute or two on the outside of the thigh with movement going
in and out, let's go to the inside of the thigh. And this way you can do it from different angles.
So I like to do it seated and I'll just move my leg in and out like this. Some people prefer to
go like this, whatever you want is fine. We'll actually start like this and I'll
end the other way. So I'm going to start near my knee and just come up and down.
As I add some length and shortening to my groin muscle and I'm using the muscle obviously as well.
So it's got to feel comfortable. You may not be able to do this day one after a pull groin
or you might go really light I'm going to heavier setting, let me go all the way light.
Yeah, that's a little less intense.
And you would just massage your way around it, just like so
find the knots, hang on it and then move your leg. As you hang on it. Let me show
you the alternate version, the one that I like. So you're just moving your leg. In and out like this,
I just feel like I can get my hands closer to my body and more control this way. But I think
some people with longer arms or shorter torsos might access your leg a little better than me.
So this works for me here. And it's just like you're rolling your leg kind of in
and out that allows you to use this muscle. So you can slide the muscle
through the place that it lives in your body while freeing it up with a massage gun.
You go, those are the most important muscle groups to get with the massage
going to free up with a massage going if you're dealing with a pole, groin,
but some bonuses that I wanted to include here, the muscles in your hamstrings, glutes
and your low back could be involved in your groin injury, especially if they're achy and painful.
So that might be a reason for you to go in there with a massage gun to free them up to
so the best way that I found to get your hamstrings is to sit just like I was
a second ago with your knee bent, and you're going to put the gun like this up against your
hamstrings. That's something important to note before you start doing this is that sciatic nerve
runs right in the middle of the hamstrings. So you generally want to stay on the inside
in the outside part of the hamstring. Because the sciatic nerve is highly irritable with
vibration movements. So this can actually set off sciatica in somebody who's already got it,
it can make it worse. Now, if you don't have any sciatica you haven't had in a long time, you don't
think you're going to get it, then you're probably safe to do this right over your sciatic nerve.
But if it's remotely irritated, even just a little bit irritated, I would strongly advise you against
using this on your hamstring muscle to make sure that you don't flare up the sciatic nerve.
So then let's go forward on the hamstring. So put in a low setting, and you just going to push it
onto your back of the thigh inner part, and go as much as you feel comfortable going up there.
And then work your way back towards the knee. Now there's no real easy way to get in here.
Unless you're a contortionist, if you have help from somebody else, then it might be a lot
easier for you to just lie flat on your stomach while somebody pounds away at the hamstrings.
But on your own, it's not the easiest to get into. But if you're dealing with a groin injury,
and you feel your hamstrings wanting to cramp up a lot, this can be extremely beneficial.
Oops, I turned it off. Let's get back on.
Let's get on the outside of the hamstring. Let me flip around so you can see me better.
Just like that up and down the outside of the hamstring.
And I feel like I got some good sized hamstring. So I'm going to turn up the
intensity to get through the tissues, they're a little better. And thankfully, I don't have any
tender spots sore spots today. So I feel pretty darn good. If you have a tender spot a sore spot,
follow the same procedure like we did, you want to dig into a get different angles on it.
Just let it sit there tenderize it a bit and you should free it up.
Now to get your glutes, what you're going to have to do is lean forward, or lean on your side,
one of the two, I'm going to get on my side here and just put it directly on the glutes. Let me
turn around and give you a better angle of what this looks like. See, we just get on the side
of your glute here. Can't really get too hands on there, you're going to have to just use one
and just stay on the muscle off of the bone my bone is right here you can see
the gun kind of starts to bounce right there we put on the lower setting.
That's the bone right there. But as soon as they get off the bone,
it stops bouncing. So that's how you know that you're already on the bone.
Of course, if it's irritate on the bone, it's going to hurt a lot to do that.
Stay on the meat of the glute and usually up towards the waistline where the glute meets
the waistline. That's where people tend to get tender spots if they're going to get it.
And you want to just go all along the edges of the glute, get the meat of the glute.
Again, if you have help from a friend, that's going to be the best for us to get somebody
else to do this on you while you lie on your side or on your stomach. And then for your
low back. You're just going to reach up a little higher up here. You'll hear my voice
vibrate now because it's on my torso. But you would just go up and down the back. This does
require some good shoulder range of motion. So if you've got shoulder problems you might
refrain from doing this one. And now if I get lower right there, now you can see a bouncing
them on the bone. So I'm going to stay high up who that kind of hurt. I hear up on the muscle here,
I'm just going to do some passes. If I find the spot that's tender, like maybe a little bit right
there, it can hang out there and get different angles get different positions on that spot.
Alright friends that covers every way that you can use a percussion massage gun. To free up
a groin muscle, making sure you get all these muscles is important to fully relax everything
that could be influencing the groin muscle. This sets you up to now do exercises to get
at the root of the problem. Keep in mind that this is just a short term solution so that you
can sleep better at night, take less pain medications, and hopefully avoid a visit to
the doctor and keep this from getting any worse and recurring over and over again.
Now bear in mind you've got to go fix the muscle imbalance. As we mentioned in other
videos regarding pulled groins go check that out so you can learn more about that
if you aren't already working on that. Thanks so much for watching. Please share this with
somebody that you think will benefit and we'll catch in the next video friends. Bye