What are the best Adductor Exercises For Stronger and Better Thigh? When it comes to developing a powerful lower body, you usually concentrate on the quads, hamstrings, and glutes.
However, despite having a direct impact on the performance of your lower-body muscles, many muscles remain out of sight and consciousness.
Then there are the adductors.
Many lifters overlook their adductors, and if you've experienced tightness in your inner thighs, you're not alone.
The good news is that a couple of classic exercises may be tweaked to mobilize and strengthen this often-overlooked muscle group.
We go deep into the benefits of training your adductors, how your adductor muscle function, and present a list of the five best adductor exercises to help you sort through all of the adductor routines accessible.
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Table of Contents
Which are the top Adductor Exercises For Stronger and Better Thigh
Your next move is: Concentrate on workouts that require your adductors to do what they're supposed to do: pull your thighs toward your body's midline.
During the wall sit, squeeze a medicine ball between your knees for a great adductor exercise.
The sumo squat, lateral squat, and adductor side plank are some of the others.
Adductor Strengthening Exercises
Check out this video for more adductor exercises for your hips!
Exercises for the Adductor Muscles
- Glute Bridge with a Single Leg
- Squat of the Cossacks
- Lunge to a box from the side
- Side Plank in Copenhagen
- Scoop Toss with Rotational Med Balls
Glute Bridge with a Single Leg
This hip extension variant strengthens the adductors of the straight leg while also reinforcing hip extension, simulating deadlifts and hip thrusts.
Squeezing the foam roller (or a medicine ball) also guarantees that hip extension comes from the glutes, not the lower back.
The single-leg glute bridge is a terrific low-intensity warm-up or filler practice in between strength routines.
The Single-Leg Glute Bridge has a number of advantages.
Because it causes a powerful contraction in the glutes, this exercise shows you what actual hip extension feels like.
It addresses glute asymmetries on both sides.
The lifter receives feedback on good hip extension technique from the foam roller or medicine ball.
The Single-Leg Glute Bridge: A Step-by-Step Guide
Place a foam roll or medicine ball between your legs and feet and lie face up on the ground. Straighten one leg by squeezing it.
Engage your adductors to bring your hips up into extension while keeping the object in place.
Lower yourself to the ground slowly and repeat for reps.
Suggestions for Programming
Make sure you're feeling it in your glutes and adductors, not your lower back.
After your major strength action for the day, do three sets of eight to 12 reps on each leg.
Squat of the Cossacks
In the frontal (horizontal) plane, the cossack squat works the adductors and abductors, which move your legs inside and outward, respectively.
Because most strength workouts take place in the sagittal (vertical) plane, it's beneficial to teach the body to move in diverse directions.
This workout is a great way to warm up before a leg day.
Feel free to add weight in the shape of a kettlebell or a dumbbell if you're feeling strong and comfortable.
The Advantages of the Cossack Squat
On one side of your body, it strengthens leg muscles while mobilizing the adductor on the other.
It aids in the development of lateral mobility.
How to Squat Like a Cossack
Begin with both feet pointed forward and wider than hip-width apart.
Then, while remaining upright, shift your weight to one leg and hinge your hip back.
Because you'll feel a stretch in your adductors, only go as far as your hip mobility allows.
Stand up to the starting position by pushing your foot through the floor.
Suggestions for Programming
Because the cossack squat tests hip mobility, only go as low as your body will allow.
Don't go crazy with the weight because this isn't a maximum strength workout.
It should be enough to do three sets of eight to twelve reps.
Lunge to a Box from the Side
If your hip mobility is limited, the Cossack squat may be too challenging for you.
The perfect regression is the lateral lunge to a box.
Stepping onto a low box not only makes the lunge easier, but it also helps you to obtain more range of motion in the working hip and a bigger stretch in the non-working leg's adductors.
You're strengthening the adductors while also improving hip mobility.
The Lateral Lunge's Advantages in a Box
The lateral lunge to a box has a wider range of motion than the conventional lateral lunge and enhances the hip complex's strength and mobility.
Glute muscle training is beneficial to hip and knee health.
More muscle-building potential with a wider range of motion.
How to Perform a Box Lateral Lunge
Stand approximately a foot away from a low box, perpendicular to it.
Assume an athletic stance with your knees bent softly.
Take a lateral stride to the box and hinge back into the working hip, maintaining your chest up and your opposing leg straight.
Sink as much as you can into your working hip and pause for a second.
Stand with your feet together again after pushing through the foot.
Suggestions for Programming
Don't go overboard with the elevated surface's height.
It's good if the length is between six and eight inches.
You can do this unloaded for 10 reps on each side as a warm-up exercise or loaded for two to four sets of eight to 15 reps on each side as an auxiliary movement for your squats and deadlifts.
Plank Plan
Maintaining a side plank with the upper leg attempting to adduct or move in against a bench is the Copenhagen plank.
To maintain stability while maintaining adductor stability, you should feel your oblique engage even more.
The beautiful thing about this plank variation is that you may regress and develop depending on your strength level by varying how much of your upper leg is on the bench.
The Copenhagen Plank's Advantages
It strengthens the adductor muscles, which are important for hip, knee, and back health.
Depending on your strength levels, you can simply improve and regress this plank variation.
How to Do a Side Plank in Copenhagen
Place the top leg on a bench (either ankle or knee) and the lower leg under the bench on the floor in a side plank posture.
Using your non-working arm, push yourself up and elevate your hips until your body is in a straight line.
Keep your lower leg off the ground and contract your glutes, holding for a few seconds or a breath.
Suggestions for Programming
This exercise can be made simpler or more difficult by changing the lever (knee or ankle on the bench).
Make sure your glutes are engaged, your elbow (or hand) is aggressively pressed into the ground, and your body is in a straight line.
Instead of attempting to beat the clock, take 3-5 deep breaths on both sides.
Scoop Toss with Rotational Med Balls
This scoop toss is only one of many rotational medicine ball throw variations that will work here.
If you've never done rotational throws before, this is an excellent place to start.
Throwing medicine balls is a lot of fun and can help you gain strength. It also strengthens internal and external hip rotation, which you will lose if you don't utilize it.
The Rotational Med Ball Scoop Toss has a number of advantages.
Targets the ability to rotate quickly and strongly, which is required for sports skills like as hitting, throwing, and changing directions.
Trains the hip internal and external rotation movements, which are often overlooked.
Simple power training activity that makes your workout more enjoyable.
The Rotational Med Ball Scoop Toss: How to Do It
Hold a medicine ball at waist level on the hip furthest away from the wall while standing side on near to the wall in an athletic base position.
Rotate to the rear hip and load it with a slight bend in your arms and knees.
Then, with the hips rotating explosively, toss the medicine ball into the wall, collect it, and return to the starting position.
Suggestions for Programming
Choose your medicine ball carefully since if it's too heavy, you'll be training strength rather than power.
Make sure your back hip (internal rotation) is providing power, not your arms.
Perform two to three sets of six to eight reps on each sides before beginning your strength training.
Adductors Muscle
The major function of the adductor muscles is to adduct (move toward the body's midline) the hips and thighs.
The adductors muscles work in tandem with the prime movers in the hips and quadriceps to assist you climb out of the bottom of the squat and keep your knees in line with your toes.
The adductor muscle also have the following key functions:
- Flexion of the hips
- Internal and external rotation of the hips
- Extension of the hips
- Pelvis balancing
- Flexion of the knee
Through all of these motions, the adductors serve a critical supportive function in the health and strength of your lower body.
Lack of hip flexion and hip mobility will influence your ability to squat, deadlift, and run, therefore if your adductors are tight or weak, it could affect your performance in the gym and in everyday activities.
The Adductors' Anatomy
There are five muscles that make up the adductor muscle group:
The adductor brevis is a thigh muscle that aids in hip flexion.
The adductor longus adducts the thigh at the hip-joint and is involved in both the flexion and extension of a flexed thigh.
The largest of the five muscles, the adductor magnus (which includes the adductor minimus), is a powerful thigh adductor that aids in hip extension.
Pectineus is the hip's most anterior adductor, allowing hip flexion and adducting the thigh at the joint.
The gracilis is a slender, flat muscle on the thigh's medial surface.
The only muscle in this group that crosses both the hip and knee joints is the quadriceps.
The thigh adductor is weak, although the hip flexor and internal hip rotator are powerful.
This set of muscles in the medial thigh is largely responsible for adduction, but it also helps to stabilize the pelvis and maintain excellent posture.
The adductors arise from the pubis and ischium bones (the bottom of the pelvis) and insert on the femur's medial posterior side (thigh bone).
The Advantages of Hip Adductor Training
With hip adduction, adductors must be strong, steady, and healthy for effective hip extension, and they also help keep the knees in line with the toes during squats, especially at the bottom.
Prevention of Injuries
Directly hip adductor exercise to the adductors may help to prevent groin strain.
Hip adductor muscles with proper hip adduction exercises may strength the resistance band according to your muscle activity in your groin muscles.
Adductor strength should be one of your top concerns if you compete in a sport that needs you to sprint or change directions especially in your inner thigh.
Hip adductor strength was one of the most common risk variables for groin injury in sport, according to an analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2015. (1)
Professional ice hockey players were 17 times more likely to suffer a groin injury if their adductor strength was less than 80 percent of their abductor strength, according to one study. (2)
(FAQ) Adductor Exercises
Your soreness could be due to adductor weakness.
Poor hip stability caused by weak or tight adductors can cause or aggravate low back discomfort.
However, by strengthening these muscles with specific exercises, you may develop a balanced chain of muscles to support your hips and back.
You'll successfully engage the Adductor Magnus if you want to squat and do full-depth squats.
If you're new to squatting or have been squatting for a long time, maintaining or improving hip mobility starts with this muscle and the inside of the hip.
Your abductor muscles are in charge of pushing your leg away from your body's midline, while your adductor muscles are in charge of moving your leg back towards it.
