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Introduction
Hip and groin pain in football players can be a long-standing and debilitating condition. 1 2 Its complex clinical presentation and multiple symptoms related to groin pain 3 often impede sports health practitioners' ability to establish its severity and provide specific guidelines for optimal management. 4 Several tests, such as tests for hip and groin pain strength, have been suggested as screening and management tools for evaluating readiness for play. 4 These tests however require specific equipment and operational knowledge, and not all practitioners will be comfortable or able to use them.
In 2011, we developed a patient-reported outcome score. The Copenhagen Hip and Groin Outcome Score (HAGOS) is capable of measuring the severity of hip and groin pain and function specifically related to sports like football. 5 This questionnaire includes 6 specific subscales and 37 questions and requires 10-15 min for testing the individual and calculating a score afterwards. 5 For football players, the most interesting and relevant part is the sports-specific part (HAGOS-Sport), consisting of 8 questions and a subsequent score. 5 Therefore, as several different hip and groin outcome scores exist, all recommended for younger to middle-aged individuals with hip and groin pain, 6 it may be relevant to also include a clinically simpler and potentially more unifying approach. 6 7 A simple and rapid approach is also highly relevant in a busy and hectic clinical setting to obtain measurements on a regular basis, involving no extra equipment, when assessing hip and groin pain status, severity and sports-related hip and groin function in football players. Different types of squeeze tests have been used for determining clinical entities or diagnoses. 8 9 Recent research has documented that testing hip-adduction squeeze strength in supine position with resistance imposed between the ankles of the player 9 10 provides the largest hip adductor moment 11 and targets the adductor longus most efficiently. 12 13 This test therefore seems able to provoke the commonly injured structure(s) around the symphysis in a manner that might be similar to strenuous sporting activity. It is easy to perform on footballers with no need for extra equipment and lasts only 5 s.
The primary purpose of the present study was to investigate whether this simple hip-adduction squeeze (The Copenhagen five-second...