One of the dangers when coming back from an injury is immediately re-injuring your muscles. Even with a solid treatment plan, Hip Flexors in particular are notorious for being easy to re-injure. This is because a lot of stress is put upon them in just about any activity, and if they are not back to full strength, it is easy to push too far right away.
How to Return to Training the Right Way
With any other type of injury, using a brace is a good way to provide support to the area and give yourself a little extra protection. However, you can’t really get a Hip Flexor brace due to the shape and location of the muscle group. There are some other options available to provide support to your muscles.
Tape
Tape is often used after a muscle tear to keep the newly healed muscle from stretching apart too far during high intensity activities. Since it’s such a dynamic muscle group, normal physio tape doesn’t perform too great. The best option is to use KT tape on your Hip Flexor for maximum support during movement.
Clothing
Another option is to buy a pair of compression shorts or the more robust type, Coreshorts
Heat
One of the most important things you can do on return to activity is to gently warm up thoroughly. To ensure that you sufficiently warm and loosen up your stiff muscles, you can use something like Rub A535 to stimulate blood flow in the area. You should be able to pick some up or a comparable product from any pharmacy or sports store.
Now even if you do all of the above three things to minimize your chance of re-injuring your Hip Flexor, you should still take it easy for a while. It’s really easy to overestimate the strength of your muscles and end up putting just a bit too much stress on them, which is enough to cause problems. Take it slow and train smart.
