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Manual Adductor Stretch

Struggling with leg and hip pain? Learn how to perform a manual adductor stretch with this comprehensive, instructional video. Increase mobility and find relief today!

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Transcript

00:00 - 00:03This is Brent, coming at you with another one of our manual stretching videos. In
00:03 - 00:06this video we're going to go after the adductor complex, those inner thigh muscles
00:06 - 00:10that have a tendency to get short and overactive in those individuals with
00:10 - 00:13both lower leg dysfunction, so that's feet turn out and often knees
00:13 - 00:17cave-in or knees bow out, as well as our lumbo-pelvic hip dysfunction, so that's
00:17 - 00:21those individuals who have an anterior pelvic tilt, posterior pelvic tilt, or
00:21 - 00:25have an asymmetrical weight shift. Now, I'm going to have my friend Yvette come out and
00:25 - 00:30help me demonstrate this exercise. The biggest mistake I see on this
00:30 - 00:35manual stretch is professionals making it very hard on themselves, rather than
00:35 - 00:39taking advantage of some kinesiology to make it very easy on themselves to get
00:39 - 00:43this stretch accomplished. So, first things first, I usually see people do
00:43 - 00:49this, take on the whole weight of the leg. Now, that might be fine if there's a size
00:49 - 00:54difference like there is between Yvette and I, where I'm much larger, but if
00:54 - 00:58Yvette was a professional athlete that was twice my size, to take the entire leg
00:58 - 01:02and try to stabilize it for the amount of time I'm going to need to stabilize
01:02 - 01:05for a static stretch could be problematic, especially if I have many
01:05 - 01:10clients, many athletes, many patients, one after the other. So I need to find an
01:10 - 01:14easier way to do this. Easiest thing to do, and I'll explain the kinesiology as
01:14 - 01:20I'm doing this, is actually just let the leg drop off the table. I have her in
01:20 - 01:25abduction, this is an adductor stretch, all I have to do is have her adjust her
01:25 - 01:30pelvis either right or left to get the amount of abduction I need to ensure
01:30 - 01:34that this is a good stretch, and all I did by bending the knee was take the
01:34 - 01:39gracilis out of the picture. The gracilis is an internal rotator of the tibia. It
01:39 - 01:43is not common for the internal rotators of the tibia to become short and
01:43 - 01:47overactive. It's much more common that we get that feet turn out, and the external
01:47 - 01:52rotators of the tibia overactive. So this is fine, there's no problem here, I can
01:52 - 01:57then take it a step further. For the most part it's the anterior adductors that get
01:57 - 02:01tight, it's the anterior adductors that get overactive. Those are the flexors and
02:01 - 02:05internal rotators of the femur. We think about an anterior pelvic tilt being more
02:05 - 02:10common, knees duck in is more common than knees duck out. I can force her into a bit
02:10 - 02:15of a posterior pelvic tilt to improve this stretch by simply taking her other
02:15 - 02:22leg and pulling her as far into flexion as I can, and then adjusting her pelvis a
02:22 - 02:26little bit so that she's now just slightly tucked under. You feel a stretch?
02:26 - 02:32I haven't done anything, I don't have to use any of my own muscular power, I can
02:32 - 02:36just use gravity and a little bit of kinesiology to get a nice adductor
02:36 - 02:40stretch. If from here I want to dial it in, I want to refine it a little bit, I now
02:40 - 02:45have both my hands free to either stabilize at either ASIS, or maybe
02:45 - 02:49stabilize at the femur as we did in the hip flexor video, and then I can use my
02:49 - 02:55other hand or even my opposite leg to add a little bit of force this way. So
02:55 - 03:00for those of you guys who are using some of your PNF protocols where you're doing
03:00 - 03:04contract-relax, or if you're doing 3 sets of 20 seconds where you're getting
03:04 - 03:07a release and pushing a little further, all you have to do is either use your
03:07 - 03:12leg or your hand and you can take her out just a little further, wait you're 30
03:12 - 03:17seconds to 2 minutes, a little further etc. So a really easy stretch technique as
03:17 - 03:22opposed to the one we saw before, not to mention much more specific to the adductor
03:22 - 03:26complex, that pectineus brevis and possibly longus that are actually
03:26 - 03:29short and overactive in those compensation patterns we talked about.
03:29 - 03:35Now, in some individuals we have a propensity for not the anterior adductors
03:35 - 03:40to get tight, but the posterior adductors. These are those individuals who have
03:40 - 03:45knees bow out, or in an asymmetrical weight shift if somebody has SI joint
03:45 - 03:50dysfunction, they're going to be tight on the side of the SI joint dysfunction in
03:50 - 03:56their posterior adductor magnus. Now the adductor magnus has a propensity to
03:56 - 04:00extend or it extends the hip rather than flexes the hip. So we're going to have to
04:00 - 04:04use different mechanics than the stretch we just used. The easiest way to go about
04:04 - 04:08doing this that I have found, is we're going to take Yvette up into flexion
04:08 - 04:13here and abduction, I'm then going to rest her shoe, and you can use a
04:13 - 04:16towel if you want to make sure you keep somebody shoes off your pants, but I'm
04:16 - 04:21going to rest that on my ASIS, I'm going to use my other hand to palpate
04:21 - 04:27her ASIS on the opposite side, and then I have this hand to stabilize her knee.
04:27 - 04:34Actually Yvette, let me get you just a little closer to me on the table. Alright,
04:34 - 04:37so I'm just watching my mechanics there, I was reaching over the table. I'm going
04:37 - 04:42to stabilize this ASIS, stabilize this knee, now I can control the amount of
04:42 - 04:47flexion by just scooting forward until I feel that first resistance barrier, and I
04:47 - 04:51can use this hand to either support, to make sure she's not guarding, or to give
04:51 - 04:55a little bit of over pressure to further stretch her adductor magnus. Once again
04:55 - 04:59I'm going to hold for 30 seconds to 2 minutes. I can then go further into the
04:59 - 05:04stretch. If I want to use my PNF contract relax antagonist, contract protocols, I
05:04 - 05:08can do all that from this position, I'm in a very strong stable position so she
05:08 - 05:13can extend back into my ASIS, she can push up into my hand, whatever I need her
05:13 - 05:18to do. How does that feel? Good. Now, the last stretch I'm going to show you
05:18 - 05:24is for a particular problem that we sometimes face with adductor
05:24 - 05:27stretching. This is not going to be something that you use for everyone
05:27 - 05:30necessarily, and there are some other techniques that can you can use to get
05:30 - 05:34around this technique, but every once in a while you'll pull somebody into
05:34 - 05:40an adductor stretch, and you'll go okay where do you feel it, and rather than say
05:40 - 05:44inner thigh, which is obviously where we want this stretch felt, they say, "I feel a
05:44 - 05:49pinch here." Well that's a problem. Pinching is not going to help
05:49 - 05:52our stretch, in fact, it's probably going to start stimulating some of those
05:52 - 05:56nociceptors, get us guarding, we're never going to get that release that
05:56 - 06:00we're looking for. So there's a trick we can use to make sure that this doesn't
06:00 - 06:08happen. I'm going to have Yvette come to the other side of the table, she's then going to
06:08 - 06:13lay on her side facing away from me, back herself all the way up into my hip
06:13 - 06:16because I want her nice and close to me to save my mechanics once again,
06:16 - 06:19you can just use a hip to make sure they're blocked out and don't back
06:19 - 06:23themselves up off the table. I'm then going to have her bend this bottom leg so
06:23 - 06:28that she's stabilized. Now, the reason why we're getting pinching up on this side
06:28 - 06:32of the hip, partly anyway, is that we had inferior capsule
06:32 - 06:39tightness. So what we need to find a way to do, is to depress the femoral head. So what
06:39 - 06:42I'm going to do is I'm going to grab Yvette's leg like so, so I'm nice
06:42 - 06:48and cradled, and then that way right when I stand up this will be on stretch, I'm
06:48 - 06:52then going to use this hand right over her greater trochanter, I'm actually
06:52 - 06:56going to use this space in here, and I'm going to create a little bit of pressure
06:56 - 07:01that way towards this heel. So I'm going to go pressure towards that
07:01 - 07:07heel, stand up, and how does that feel Yvette? Alright, so now I've taken that
07:07 - 07:13femoral head, pressed it down making sure I stretch that inferior capsule, I no
07:13 - 07:16longer get the pinching on the side of the hip, and this is a pretty good
07:16 - 07:21stretch. Now, the disadvantage of this stretch over the two stretches that we
07:21 - 07:26just did is this does take a lot more work from me. It is not easy to lift the
07:26 - 07:31weight of somebody's leg. So, once again, just a quick review, we had the
07:31 - 07:37anterior adductors.
07:37 - 07:43It was leg hanging off, and then this, the contralateral leg, was up, forcing
07:43 - 07:46somebody into a posterior pelvic tilt, you can then add as much force
07:46 - 07:51as you need. We had the adductor magnus stretch, that's for individuals with
07:51 - 07:55knees bow out, or that asymmetrical weight shift caused by SI joint
07:55 - 08:01dysfunction. That was here. So I'm pulling into flexion and abduction. And then the
08:01 - 08:05last technique we went through was for those individuals who feel pinching,
08:05 - 08:12is going to be side-lying, bottom leg nice and stable, you're going to
08:12 - 08:17stabilize the greater trochanter, cradle the leg, stand up, and use a little
08:17 - 08:20inferior glide to make sure that pinching goes away and we get a little
08:20 - 08:24bit of an inferior capsule stretch. I hope you keep working on your
08:24 - 08:26manual stretching technique, I think you'll find that the better your
08:26 - 08:31technique is, the better results your clients, patients, and athletes get. I look
08:31 - 08:34forward to talking to you again soon.

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