Tight, Then Painful: Growth Spurts, Soccer Tournaments and Hip Mobility

A young soccer player comes in during a growth spurt. The hips feel tight, the warm-up feels like a chore, and after a couple of tournament weekends there is back pain that was not there before. Nothing dramatic happened. Nobody got kicked. It just started hurting.

That is the case in this clip. Here is one of our young soccer athletes and Dr. Jordan working together on hip mobility.

A growth spurt puts a young athlete in a tight spot

This is one of those cases where an athlete comes in and they are going through a growth spurt. They are growing, their muscles are tight, they are painful, and they are getting back pain at times. So we use a lot of evaluation of their hip flexors and their hip mobility. Bones lengthen on their own schedule and the soft tissue has to catch up, and while it is catching up the hip often has less room to work with than the sport is asking for.

Some athletes do the warm-up, but only the minimum

Sometimes certain athletes will do their warm-up, but they do it just to the minimal necessary to get through the warm-up, not with high intensity and intention. And the stretching, a lot of people do not enjoy stretching. It just feels uncomfortable, so they do not do it. They do not understand the importance of it. Then they get into a situation after a couple of soccer tournaments where now they are hurting, and they wonder why.

That is not laziness. It is a fifteen minute window before a game where nothing hurts yet, so the reason to do the work properly is invisible.

Chicken or egg: tight first, or guarding after

Sometimes it is a chicken or egg situation. Were they tight going into the injury and that is what led to it, or was the injury what made them protectively guard and get tight? Honestly, either way. Once we are in this situation, it is water under the bridge. We have got to correct it.

Protective tightness is the body’s version of a parking brake. It is doing a job, it is trying to keep a sore area quiet. Leave it on though, and everything around it has to work harder to get the same movement, which is usually when the low back starts complaining.

What Dr. Jordan is doing with the hip in this clip

Before the mobility work, we go hands on. We use manual pin and stretch techniques, myofascial release and similar soft tissue work, we treat, and we adjust.

What you are seeing in the video is Dr. Jordan resetting some hip mobility. He brings the athlete around to work the opposite side, sets the knee, then has him drive the knee up close to the chest. The detail he is watching for is that the outside part of the hip is just as mobile as the front. Hips get worked in one direction all season and the outside is frequently the part that gets left behind. A few repetitions, then: walk around a little bit, let me know what that feels like.

How quickly it loosens back up tells us something

Here Dr. Jordan is loosening back up some hip mobility and restoring what was guarded from the previous day. Sometimes we use that to help us identify how they are actually doing, specifically how quickly it is able to loosen back up.

That is one of the great skills of hands on care. You are not only giving the athlete relief, you can feel the mobility changes right away. Add some active resisted exercise, watch them move, and we get a clear picture of where they stand. An area that loosens quickly and holds reads differently than an area that fights you every visit.

Soreness after playing hard is normal. Pain in an area is not.

The big take home for an athlete is this. Pain is not normal. Muscular soreness, being sore after playing hard, that is all normal. But having pain in an area is not.

It is a battle sometimes when you are going through a growth spurt, you are tight, you are painful, and you are trying to stay active, keep playing and keep your spot on the team. That confusion is real, and it is why athletes stay quiet about things they should be telling somebody.

Our job is to help you stay in the game

That is our job at Active Sports Therapy, to make sure you stay in the game and stay healthy. We monitor conditions to make sure they are not worsening and that the athlete is doing well, and we communicate with your athletic trainer so they are able to give you the on field support you need. Being part of that team around a young athlete here in Hendersonville is one of the things we are most prideful about.

Questions soccer families ask us

Why does my child get back pain during a growth spurt?

When bones lengthen quickly, the muscles around the hip and low back are often tight and working at the edge of their range. The low back frequently ends up making up the difference, and that is often where the ache shows up. We evaluate the hip flexors and hip mobility first to see how much of it is coming from there.

Is it soreness or is it an injury?

Muscular soreness after playing hard is normal. Pain located in one specific area is different, and that is the one worth having looked at rather than waiting out. If it keeps showing up in the same spot after games, tell somebody.

Does stretching actually matter if they warm up before games?

It matters more when the warm-up is done with intention than when it is done just to get through it. Many young athletes get through the motions without ever reaching the range they need in a game, and the hips are usually the first place that shows.

Will my athlete have to stop playing?

Not automatically. A lot of what we do is working alongside the sport rather than pulling somebody out of it, monitoring to be sure things are not worsening and keeping the athletic trainer in the loop. What that looks like depends on the athlete and what we find in the exam.

If your athlete is tight and hurting

If your soccer player has been tight through the hips and is now getting pain that keeps coming back in the same place, we would rather look at it during the season than after it. We will evaluate the hip flexors and hip mobility, treat what we find, and tell you plainly what we are seeing. Book a visit with us in Hendersonville and we will get started.