Inner thigh stretch – Adductors

by | Apr 8, 2022 | Exercises | 0 comments

The inner thigh muscles are called the adductors.  Their action is to bring the thighs and knees together.

The muscles originate on the pubic bone and around to the ischial tuberosity (sitting bone).  The longest extends to below the knee.  They can be very tight on many people.

 

Equipment

None necessary.

Steps

  1. Stand with your feet wide. This is ideally more than shoulder width, but if that isn’t possible then as wide as you are comfortable.
  2. Your toes want to be pointing forwards from you ankles, rather than pointing out to the sides.
  3. Keeping your torso upright, bend one knee, so that your pelvis moves sideways.  You should feel a stretch down to your inner knee.
  4. Hold that stretch for thirty seconds.
  5. Repeat on the other side.
  6. To enhance the stretch, whilst standing with legs wide: imagine there is an arrow pointing down from the pubic area to the ground.
  7. Tilt your pelvis so the arrow is pointing more to one foot.  In the image my fingers are pointing down from the pelvis.  You may already feel a slight stretch at the groin.
  8. Bend the knee that the “arrow” is pointing towards.  You may find that the stretch starts sooner, so take it carefully.
  9. Repeat the movements with both knees bent.  Here the stretch won’t feel like it gets as far as teh knees as you’ve slackend off the longest muscles.

 

Things to think about
  • The enhanced movement takes the pubic area away from the femur so it can feel more intense.

 

These movements can be done as a static stretch, holding the extreme position for about 30 seconds, or it can be more of an active constant movement going between the two extremems. Why do I say to hold the static stretch for 30 seconds?  I put it like this: the first 10 seconds it feels like the muscles are shocked into wondering what this position is.  Then the next 10 seconds they start to relax into the position, and the final 10 seconds they might also be able to move a bit deeper into the movement, and accept that this is possible.

These movements should not cause additional pain or discomfort, or cause new pain.  If they do then please stop and get some advice on what is happening to your body.

 

Video

Here’s a short video of me running through this stretch. If you need to make it full screen, click on the four arrows.

Thanks for reading this my lovely Interonauts.

Tim