Adductor Muscles
Let’s talk Adductors! The adductors are an important group of muscles located on your inner thighs that are responsible for bringing your legs toward the midline of your body. Their primary function is to provide lower body stability during daily activities such as walking, going upstairs, and squatting. They are especially important when performing the exercise. Athletes, in particular, depend on this muscle group to aid in explosive movements such as running, jumping, and quickly moving from side to side. In addition, they provide mobility at the hip joint which is essential for injury prevention.
The Adductor Muscles Include:
- Pectineus
- Adductor Longus
- Adductor Magnus
- Gracilis
- Adductor Brevis
When training your adductors, it’s important to ensure that you perform a proper warmup, gradually increase the range of motion and resistance, and focus on muscle contraction in order to maximize efficiency and prevent injury. If you’re looking to improve your hip muscle strength, mobility, or sports performance, including some adductor strengthening exercises in your training regimen may provide great benefits. Personally, I believe these muscles are not trained as much as they should be. A little bit of FOCUS/EFFORT training in this area has the potential to prevent so many injuries from your hips, groin, back, and knees. Below is a list of exercises you can do to help strengthen your adductor muscles. Also below is a video of the butterfly stretch to help lengthen your adductors.
ADDUCTOR STRENGTHENING EXERCISES
1) Seated or Laying Ball Squeezes
2) Sumo Squat
3) Side Lunges
4) Side Planks
5) Standing Resisted Hip adduction ( Using a band)
6) Laying straight leg raised with toes pointed out
Example of the butterfly stretch
Any Questions or still having difficulty/pain, Please call Elite Muscle Recovery at 423-664-8452 or click the link below. We would love to help you get back to the activities you were born to do!