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Adductors of the thigh. What are they?

 Adductors are more commonly known as you inner thigh muscles.  On my inner thigh I can describe the area as the meaty/squishy part of the leg on the inside of the thigh.  The adductor muscles are responsible for bringing you legs together.  Wherever you are right now, squeeze your legs together, as if you are trying to make yourself into a merperson and only have a single tail.  You should be able to feel the muscles of the inner thigh activate making this pulling together, squeezing motion. 

The inner thigh is made of 5 large muscles, I have always thought it is strange for a part of my body that I don't really feel I use a lot to have so many muscles.  The muscles are called adductor longus, adductor brevis, adductor magnus, gracilis and pectineus.  

The adductor muscles stabilize your pelvis whilst you to walk, run and jump.   They are generally really important for healthy movement and a pain free pelvis.  So why don't we talk about them as much as our glutes? (glutes are included in the abductors) I think it could be because you cant get a bubble bum from working your adductors and popular culture is responsible for many of the things we focus on. 

It is relatively common for the adductor muscles (inner thigh) to be weak.  This can show up when we do a large pelvic tilt exercise. 

For the large pelvic tilt you start laying on you back knees lifted towards the ceiling, feet on the mat and hip width apart.  Inhale, exhale engage your core (What do I think about when I engage my core?) and lift your pubic bone up towards the ceiling until your lumber spin has imprinted into you mat, then continue to peel you spine from the mat one vertebra at a time until you reach a bridge position.  When you do this movement, if you feel that you knees want to open out away from each other, or your big toe wants to peel away from the mat it could be that your adductor muscles need some additional strengthening. To complete the large pelvic tilt movement, inhale, exhale engage your core and slowly imprint your spine back on the mat one vertebra at a time. 

As always please only attempt the exercises described if you are confident with what you are doing and are not in pain.  Please let me know if you have questions and enjoy knowing you adductors slightly better. 



Location: Bristol, UK

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