Context: Muscle injuries of the hip stabilizers are considered rare in sport.
Objective: This report presents a previously unreported case of a contact injury resulting in acute strain of quadratus femoris, obturator externus, and inferior gemellus in an amateur Australian rules football player.
Design: Level 4-case report.
Case presentation: A player was tackled ipsilateral to the injured leg, while in hip flexion in a lunged position. The case describes the diagnostic process, initial management, and return to play for this athlete.
Results: Following rehabilitation, the player was able to return to sport at 8 weeks without ongoing issues.
Conclusions: A literature search for sports-related contact injuries to either muscle returned only one result. All other documented cases of injury to these muscle groups are confined to noncontact mechanisms or delayed presentations. Despite conventional teaching, the action of the deep external rotators of the hip appears to be positionally dependent. Knowledge of this type of injury and mechanism may be useful for future clinical reasoning and differential diagnosis in patients with this type of presentation.
Keywords: buttocks; hip; injury; rehabilitation.