The Importance of Strong Inner Thighs
The inner thighs are known as adductor muscles. These muscles are what bring your legs together and they also stabilize your hips. People are always so caught up in toning their quads and hamstrings that they completely forget about the inner thigh. For a body to be in balance for healthy movement, you need to have strong inner thighs, too. Listed below are a few items that the inner thigh is responsible for:
Improves Balance: Your inner thighs play a big part in helping you find your center of balance and stability.
Healthy Hip Mechanics: Inner thighs stabilize the legs during the swing phase of gait. They also play an important role with side to side movements.
Improves Ankle Mobility: When you have tight calves and stiff ankles, that all has to do with what is going on with the upper portion of the leg. Your inner thighs contribute to how you are standing and how your ankle sits.
Core Strength: For a strong core it is very important that you have good inner thigh support along with strength of the pelvic floor.
The right amount of support and flexibility with the inner thighs helps improve posture, reduce foot pain, and keep your ankles healthy with better mobility to avoid sprains and strains of the foot, ankle, knee and hip. Below is a video of 3 simple exercises that target your inner thighs, but also give your legs a good all-around workout:
Wall Sit with a Ball
In this exercise make sure that you are constantly squeezing the ball between your thighs. Begin with 1 rep of 15-30 seconds at 90º-120° angle. As that becomes easier, increase the amount of time and repetitions. The deeper you sit, the more you’re engaging the muscles, making this exercise more challenging.
Sumo Squat
With this exercise, stand with feet wider than shoulder-width apart and your toes slightly turned out. Begin with reps of 10. Once that becomes easier, you can increase to 2 sets of 10 reps. Also, adding in free weights will increase the difficulty.
Curtsy Lunge
When performing this, step your left leg behind you and to the right so your thighs cross, bending both knees as if you were curtsying. Make sure your front knee is aligned with your front ankle. Just like the sumo squat, begin with reps of 10. Once that becomes easier, you can increase to 2 set of 10 reps. Adding in free weights will increase the difficulty for this exercise as well.
