Short answer. Yes, it’s okay to run with a groin strain if it’s not causing your pain in the groin to elevate two points on the pain scale.
Running and sprinting can be part of the rehabilitation process, however often a run-walk program is preferred as you can slowly increase your volume to reduce the risk of overstressing the adductors too early.
For a complete rehab program check out this article; and if you’re wondering why it’s taking forever to heal, read this one.
What would be a good return to running program after a groin strain?
I start most of my clients off with a walk-run program, depending on how severe the pain is.
If i’ve determined that the symptoms are related to a strained adductor muscle, i’ll start my clients off by running 30 seconds to 1 minute, with 1 minute of rest at a slow pace.
Once they’ve shown that this is okay and is not flaring up symptoms I then move them up in speed to a moderate pace.
I do this until I find a pace that starts to bother them. Once we’ve found that pace, training right under that pace is what we aim for.
HOWEVER. Here is a caveat…
Sometimes you might feel fine during a workout but everything hurts much more later.
If this is you I would recommend starting off with only doing a slow pace and increasing the intensity very slowly and only after you are certain that symptoms will not be significantly worse 24 hours later.
As you can see, this is very nuanced. In some cases you can progress quickly if your symptoms are not flaring up too much with increasing intensity.
In other cases you’re going to need to take it more slowly.
Can I sprint after a groin strain?
As discussed above, yes, you can sprint (most likely), however, you should make sure that you slowly return to sprinting if you are having severe pain with this.
With any rehab process or return to sport rehab program, the goal is to make sure you progress steadily over time, not all at once.
Often times I start my athletes off with a run-walk program, with the focus of increasing the speed every week as tolerated.
If you are able to increase your speed each week and symptoms do not increase from session to session, you are clear to continue to increase your speed.
Other rehab exercises are highly recommended to ensure a proper recovery which I’ll share, below.
What other rehab exercises should I be doing after a groin strain?
I’ve written this article about the exact exercises that I take people through and approximately when you should be reaching each stage of recovery.
It’s important to note that everyone progresses at a different rate, and this makes the assumption that you have an adductor/groin strain.