Lamine and pubalgia: "It´s an injury you have to live with"

Now, the young talent from Barça, Lamine Yamal, is suffering from it at the start of this season. To better understand his situation, we consulted with a biomechanics expert and physiotherapist Lluís Puig.

He is not in peak physical condition

It was clear in the Clásico del Bernabéu that Lamine Yamal is not going through his best physical moment. Usually explosive, with impossible dribbles and accelerations, this time he seemed more contained. In fact, in some plays, he showed signs of discomfort. The FC Barcelona has not issued any recent medical report, and the last we know is that the player received medical clearance on October 18. However, ten days later, in Chamartín, his performance showed that he has not yet regained all his usual freshness.

A complex problem

Although the club insists that the injury is overcome and that what he lacks is competitive rhythm, it is acknowledged that he is still not at 100%. Pubalgia, however, is not a simple ailment. It is a multifactorial injury, with different possible origins, and it does not behave like a muscle injury that heals and disappears. In fact, Leo Messi also suffered this problem at two different stages of his career. The former Barça physiotherapist Miguel Ángel Cos, who worked at the club between 2000 and 2008, explained on the program ´Què t’hi jugues´ on Cadena SER that "the two pubalgias were very different; in the first one, he was still growing, when he was in the reserve team." He also humorously recalled that "we told him not to play fut-tennis matches with Ronaldinho because he gave it his all and couldn´t do explosive exercises."

It is not a muscle injury

The physiotherapist Lluís Puig clarifies that "first of all, we must say that pubalgia is not a muscle injury, but rather an alteration in the pubic area, where different muscles converge. The abdominal muscles from above, the adductors from below. And, apart from that, there is the muscle in front of the leg, which would be the quadriceps or the hamstrings behind, and behind the back, we have the paravertebral muscles." According to Puig, "we can say that there are multiple factors that can cause that pain in the pubis. This may be due to his growth phase, in which his body statics have changed and some muscles have been affected as he grew. It may be that there is more shortening in the hamstring area, that the rectus abdominis muscles are stronger but the deep ones are not as much...". In that sense, he adds that "we have to work at different levels and we cannot say that it is an injury that will be resolved in a month. No, we will have to live with it and we will have to do preventive and compensatory work to give him guarantees to be able to play at the highest level."

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Treatment and recovery

Regarding treatment, Puig details that "the treatment is multifactorial; we will have to observe if he suffers from a pelvic distortion (whether he has a more anterior or posterior iliac), if his hamstrings are shortened, if his deep abdominal muscles are weaker, if there is a lot of tension in the adductor area, and he will have to do more eccentric work; since the pain is localized in the pubic area, we will try to see all the alterations around it to provide maximum comfort to this point." In summary, pubalgia is an injury that requires patience, control, and personalized follow-up. In the case of Lamine Yamal, the challenge will be to learn to live with it while trying to maintain his performance at the elite level.