Intermediate Groin Stretch
A supine strap stretch taken sideways: you lie on your back, loop a belt over one foot, raise the leg, then let it travel out to the side toward the floor. Abducting a straight leg loads the adductors and the inner hamstring together, and the floor under your back stops the pelvis rolling over to fake the range.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Lie flat on your back with both legs extended and the small of your back in light contact with the floor.
- Loop a belt, band or towel over the ball of one foot; take both ends in the hand on the same side as that leg.
- Raise the leg to roughly ninety degrees with the knee locked, then take the slack out of the strap.
- Anchor the opposite hip: press the down leg's heel into the floor and let that hand rest on the hip bone to feel it lift.
- Rotate the working leg so the kneecap points at the ceiling before you take it out, not turned outward.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Slow nasal breathing, longer out than in. Take a fraction more range on each exhale and hold your position on the inhale; the adductors are quick to guard if you force them.
Before you load it
- If you have had a groin strain, wait until it is pain-free under gentle load before stretching it at end range. A lengthened hold on healing adductor tissue sets recovery back.
How much, how often
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
No load beyond the strap. Two to three holds of 20-30 seconds per side, most days. Judge progress by the angle the leg reaches with the opposite hip still flat on the floor: 30 degrees is stiff, 45 is workable, past 60 is genuinely mobile for a non-dancer. Frequency across the week moves this more than a single long session.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Put your free hand on that hip bone and let the leg out only as far as the hip stays down. Expect that to be 20-30 degrees less than you thought — the range you lost was coming from your spine.
Keep the kneecap pointed at the ceiling for the whole hold. External rotation swaps the stretch from the adductors to the hip capsule and hamstring, which is a different drill.
Lower over a slow count of five and hold still. A ballistic drop into a lengthened adductor is the exact loading pattern that strains a groin in the first place.
Back off ten degrees and slide the leg slightly toward your head before taking it out. A front-of-hip pinch is bone or capsule, not muscle, and it will not stretch away.
Why bother
The adductor group runs from the pubic bone down the inside of the thigh, and the longest of them, adductor magnus, also extends the hip — so it behaves partly like a hamstring. Taking the leg out to the side with the knee locked straight puts the whole group on stretch at once, which a seated butterfly with bent knees never manages.
Lying on your back is the control. Standing or seated groin stretches let you rotate the pelvis and lean, so the range you see is a mix of hip and spine. Here the opposite hip stays pinned to the floor, and the moment it starts lifting you know you have hit the end of true hip abduction. That is why it is worth the belt and the floor space.
Where it fits
After a session, or on a rest day, two or three holds of 20-30 seconds per side. Worth prioritising if you play a sport with hard lateral cutting, or if wide-stance squats and sumo deadlifts feel blocked at the bottom. Skip it directly before those lifts — do it after.
If this one isn't it
No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.
Same job, different kit
Asked and answered
How is this different from a butterfly or frog stretch?
Those bend the knee, which slackens the two-joint adductors and biases the short adductors near the pubic bone. A straight leg taken out to the side loads the long adductors and adductor magnus through their full length. Do both if you want the whole group; do not assume one covers the other.
Will this help my sumo deadlift or wide-stance squat?
It can, if adductor length is genuinely what stops you sitting into a wide stance. Test it: take your wide stance and squat down. If you feel a pull along the inner thigh, this stretch is aimed at the right tissue. If you feel a hard pinch at the front of the hip instead, that is bony and stretching will not open it.
How far should the leg go out?
As far as it goes with the opposite hip flat on the floor, and no further. Most untrained adults land between 30 and 45 degrees from vertical. The number matters less than the constraint — a 70-degree stretch with the pelvis rolled over is worth less than a 35-degree one with it pinned.
Can I do this before playing football or another cutting sport?
Use a short dynamic version instead: swing the leg across and out ten times per side rather than holding. Static end-range holds before high-speed lateral work can leave the adductors briefly less able to produce force, which is not the state you want them in for a hard change of direction.