I recently began with a former D1 soccer player, late 20s, very sorted and confusing history of hip and groin pain. He hadn’t gotten any definition or answers for some time. Just before getting me, he had travelled to see Dr. Meyers in Philadelphia where he ruled out sports hernia and set him up for an arthrogram to rule out a labral tear.
So when I saw him, aside from regional and interregional dysfunction, I also felt he had a labral tear. MRI confirmed.
My point in sharing this is not so much to recount this case and how we’ve attacked his programming. The real point is that most hip labral tears do not equal gloom and doom. I’ve never found the study (haven’t looked all that hard) that I first heard of from Sahrmann that 96% of a sample of cadavers had labral tears.
Certainly over the last 7-10 years, the diagnosis is more prevalent, but only because surgeons have advanced their skills to be able to repair these tears via ‘scope. The condition has probably always been prevalent.
If your hip snaps or pops, you probably have a labral tear.
If your hip pinches when your knee approaches your chest, you probably have a labral tear.
If your front side hip kills after golf and you find your lead foot opening up, you probably have a labral tear.
It’s not something that mandates surgery though.
Often training rotary stability and limiting positions that provoke the tear leave folks this young man I referenced above very satisfied and with a full and aggressive training program.
