Best Way To Strengthen Inner Thigh Adductors?

What's the best way to strengthen the inner thigh adductors?

Thank you.

Mitch

The best way?

Straddle oversplits to stand for reps, while holding a weight plate.
 

Something manageable to build up to?

Tai chi pistol, seen at 1:40 in this video. it is adductor hell. The trick is to not cheat it by pushing the extended leg against the base leg. That would not work the adductor. Instead, pull out and try to clear the legs from each other. Good luck learning this one and watch out for some serious cramps.

Thanks, it's hard to tell from the vid if it's a difficult move to learn.

Any idea if the legs together progressions of the manna in Foundation help much to strengthen the adductors of the inner thigh?

I find my adductors get a lot of work during SL/PE1 or say FL/PE3>iM. Anything that requires high glute activation but also requires you to keep your knees together.

See, one of the glutes is a prime mover in hip ABduction, so trying to counteract that is pretty hard work. You'll lose, because I've never met anyone with stronger adductors than glutes, but it's fun to try.

Question: what exactly are you trying to get strong adductors FOR? And why can't you just strengthen them by doing that?

Edit: Okay, barbell squats work them pretty hard as well.  Walking with a limp over here....

They also act as stabilisers, so any single-leg squatting will engage them to a high level.  When I first learned the pistol I felt hella activation in my adductors because of this.

Oh, and here's a nifty move I learned from pilates.  It's basically a standing front leg raise, with your foot externally rotated.  Really isolates the adductors, but I found it painful and not really worth training.

pancake progression oh handstand 2 provided all the necessary progressions to perform actively the pancake, this means that during the progression you will develop adductors able to resist actively at the gravity force  in a position very near to the split.

Yes, some H2 work is quite hard on this area.

dynamo said:

Thanks, it's hard to tell from the vid if it's a difficult move to learn.

 

Yea, it is a fairly difficult move to learn and do properly. The lack of progression available on the internet means you will have to be a little creative in tackling this movement. And later, you can start adding weight to the extended leg if you like...or extend the leg laterally further and further...

The others have posted tougher exercises which are more relevant to GST but I would like to add that swimming breast-stroke would work it nicely too and you develop some good motor skills and better cardiovascular endurance.

Bipocni, thanks for the tips.

alex87 said:

pancake progression oh handstand 2 provided all the necessary progressions to perform actively the pancake, this means that during the progression you will develop adductors able to resist actively at the gravity force  in a position very near to the split.

I own the Foundation Series and Handstand 1.  It will probably be a while before I'm ready to hit Handstand 2 (even though I wish I was ready right now).  If you ever run across something to demo this please let me know.