Seated Adduction & Abduction Exercises

You hip adductor and abductors are responsible for lifting your legs out to the side and also bringing them back into the body. They’re also involved in keeping your pelvis properly aligned and keeping you on balance. There are a few exercises that you can do while seated to strengthen them. Hip strength exercises will help you build strength and tone. If you’re looking to lose fat in your thighs, also incorporate regular bouts of calorie-burning cardio.

  1. Muscles

    • Your hip adductors, which include your adductor brevis, adductor longus, adductor magnus, pectineus and gracilis, are primarily located at the inside of your thighs. They pull your legs in toward your body, so exercises strengthening them involve squeezing your legs together. Hip abductors lift your legs out to the side. Your gluteus medius, gluteus minimus, gluteus maximus and tensor fasciae latae, which are located in your buttocks and at the outside of your thighs, are responsible for handling hip abduction.

    Adducting Exercises

    • To target your adductors while sitting, you can perform level hip adduction on a machine or thigh ball squeezes. Most fitness facilities offer a hip adduction pulley machine. Sit on the unit and place your legs outside the thigh pads so that the pads are resting on the inside of your legs. Squeeze your legs together and then control them back out. To perform thigh ball squeezes, sit in a chair with your knees bent and feet on the floor and place a medicine ball or rubber ball in between your knees. Squeeze your knees together as hard as you can and then relax a moment before doing another repetition.

    Abducting Exercises

    • For your hip abductors, you can do seated hip abduction on the machine provided at the gym or do hip abduction with an exercise band. You’ll likely be performing hip abduction on the same exercise machine that you did hip adduction. However, this time you’ll set your legs so that they’re inside the thigh pads so that the pads are resting on the outside of your legs. Start with your legs together and then open them up as wide as you can. Control them back together and repeat. To perform hip abduction with an exercise band, sit in a chair with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Place a single exercise band loop around both knees. Open your thighs, stretching the band, and then control them back together.

    Training

    • To see significant improvements in hip abduction and adduction strength and tone, perform the exercises two to three days per week. Complete two to three sets of eight to 15 repetitions. Avoid jerky movements in an attempt to lift more weight or complete more repetitions. If you’re incorporating the exercises in an attempt to lose fat in the thighs, understand that to lose fat you’ll need to burn more calories than you consume. You can do the hip strengthening exercises simultaneously, but fat tissue is completely independent of muscle tissue.