DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I am in my late 20s and play many sports – hockey, basketball and volleyball. I have had to give all of them up because of groin pain. It’s not there when I am not playing, but when I am, it gets so bad, I have to stop. A friend had a similar kind of pain, and it was due to a sports hernia. Is that the same as a regular hernia? – J.R.

ANSWER: A sports hernia, or sportsman’s hernia, is not like a regular hernia at all. It’s sort of a misnomer. A hernia is a bulge of abdominal organs through a defect in the abdominal wall. With a sports hernia, there is no abdominal wall defect, nor is there a bulge.

The one symptom of a sports hernia is groin pain. The groin is the crease in the leg where it joins the abdomen. The pain of this kind of injury comes on during activity and goes away when the person is at rest.

The pain comes from a tearing of the tissues of the groin. It usually comes on slowly and intensifies over many weeks. Sometimes, however, it occurs all of a sudden, and the injured person feels like something has torn – as it has.

Your family doctor can handle most groin injuries and come up with a diagnosis. Not all groin pain comes from hernias – regular or sports hernias. Injuries or inflammation of the pubic bones or tears of muscles near the groin can produce similar pain.

If the doctor thinks your pain might be due to a sports hernia, then rest, heat and anti-inflammation medicines are the conservative therapies for it. If the pain doesn’t respond to those measures, a surgeon with experience in treating sports hernias can give you an opinion on the effectiveness of surgical repair of the injured area.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I work out in a gym where there’s much unconventional exercise. The latest is hanging chains from barbells. I can’t imagine what the benefit of this is. Is there any? – B.P.

ANSWER: Strange as it might look, hanging chains from barbells does provide additional benefits to weightlifting exercises.

The chains are wrapped around both ends of the barbell, and a long length of chain is left lying on the floor. As the lifter hoists the barbell, a portion of the chain is lifted off the floor, and the chain adds more weight to the barbell.

The idea behind this is sound. The most difficult part of a lift is getting it started – the initial phase. Once the weight has been lifted, the rest of the lift is easier. More weight could be lifted once the lift has gotten started. Muscles, therefore, don’t get the maximum workout they could handle once the starting inertia has been overcome. That’s where the chains come in. As the barbell is lifted, more chain weight dangles from the barbell. It’s a clever way to introduce greater exercise intensity to tax muscles more at points where they can handle a greater challenge.

If you are interested, chains used for this purpose vary in weight from 0.4 pounds to 5 pounds per foot of chain length.

Dr. Donohue regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but he will incorporate them in his column whenever possible. Readers may write him or request an order form of available health newsletters at P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475.