A Hernia Guide for Sports

Hernias are painful injuries that happen when a small tear occurs in the lower abdominal wall. Sometimes the intestines push through the tear, resulting in what is called an "inguinal" hernia, while other times the intestines will remain inside in what is referred to as a "sports hernia." Both injuries are very common in sports such as soccer, rugby and tennis. Depending on their severity, hernias require either physical therapy or surgery to be repaired.

Misconceptions

Because sports hernias happen when a tear occurs in the abdominal walls, you may think that this can be avoided by strengthening your abdominal muscles. This is, in fact, untrue. Hernias happen to amateur and professional athletes alike, for reasons completely separate from the strength of their abs. Thus, a person who weighs 90 pounds with little to no noticeable ab muscles may very well be less susceptible to a hernia than a professional football player who weighs 220 lbs with huge ab muscles.

Cause and Identification

Unlike many other debilitating injuries, hernias are not caused by any one single incident. According to Dr. Jeffrey S. Hoadley, who is a hernia surgeon and the groin pain specialist for the Atlanta Falcons, injuries happen over time due to an imbalance of strength between the core and lower leg muscles. The injury often begins slowly with pain in the lower abdominal or groin region. As time goes on, pain begins to intensify and, if the pain started in the groin region, it begins traveling to the abdominal area. As it relates to sports, hernias can occur if you are over-straining your ab muscles or consistently attempting to lift objects too heavy.

Effects

Hernias are almost always intensely painful, and can seriously limit your physical activity. Simple tasks like sneezing, coughing and kicking can cause blinding pain. Thus, participating in a sporting event, be it practice or a game, can cause not only extreme amounts of pain, but also potentially worsen your injury. If you further damage your hernia, especially if you have a protruding bulge, it could cause the tissue to swell, resulting in a strangulated hernia, which requires immediate medical attention.

Repair

Some hernias require little more than a few weeks rest, paired with ice off and on for 15 to 20 minutes at at time. If a hernia has caused a bulge in the skin, however, this often requires surgery. The doctor makes an incision to re-insert the bulging tissue, or in the case of strangulation, remove the tissue altogether. Sometimes, sports hernias are serious or painful enough to require surgery. A study presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Specialty Day in 2010 showed a new, minimally invasive surgery that may allow athletes with sports hernias to return to the field three times faster than before. The new surgery showed that athletes could return to full form after only 4.5 weeks, compared to traditional surgery, which took an average of 16.5 weeks.

Recovery and Prevention

Post-operation, athletes need to avoid lifting objects heavier than 10 pounds for two full weeks. Dr. Hoadley recommends waiting until the second week for physical rehabilitation, which may include walking outside on a smooth surface or on a treadmill for 20 minutes per day.

Hernia prevention for sports starts with training, or rather, the lack of over-training. If you are increasing the intensity of your workouts each week, the increase needs to be capped at 10 percent maximum. Dr. David Albin of the Hernia Center of Southern California recommends that all athletes, regardless of their sport of choice, should do regular exercises that increase flexibility and strengthen pelvic muscles.