Hey everybody, it's Dr. Jo! I got an email the other day from Jennifer, and she was asking
how to strengthen her inner thighs. Our inner thighs are made of our adductor muscles, A-D,
adductor muscles, and our groin muscles. So if you want to stretch those out first, you
can go to askdoctorjo.com and check out the groin stretches, and now I'm going to show
you how to strengthen those muscles. So here we go! So the first exercise I'm going to
show you is using a resistive band. I've got the green band down here, and the best way
to use it, is tie a knot on one side, and close the door so it stays nice and tight.
Make sure the door is closed all the way, otherwise it's going to come back and snap
you. Then I tied a loop on this side, and it doesn't have to be a big loop because usually
what I'll do is I'll go through the loop here and grab some band so the loop becomes bigger.
For this exercise, you want to put it on the leg that is closest to the door. So I'm going
to put it around my foot, just about where the top of my ankle is. You want to step out
to the side where the band is tight enough to give you some good resistance. So you want
to keep your foot straight forward. A lot of times, people might want to turn their
foot out, or turn it to the inside, but you're going to keep that foot straight forward,
and pull it across your body. You can hold on in the beginning if you need to, but once
it get easier for a little more of a challenge, you can let go, and that will make your legs
work harder. Keeping those toes facing forward. That's going to work that inner thigh. So
now I'm going to have you bend up your knees, you can grab a big pillow or something like
a soccer ball or basketball. You want something with a little bounce in it. I'm going to put
it between my legs here, and just lie down and relax your back. You're just going to
squeeze into the ball or pillow, and then relax. Now you can start off with a 2 second
hold, depending on how hard it is for you, and then relax, doing that 5-10 times, and
then build your way up. So that next couple of times, try 3 or 4 seconds, and work your
way up to holding it for 10 seconds if you can, and that's squeezing those inner thigh
muscles into the pillow or ball. Nice hold, squeeze, and then relax. So the last exercise
I'm going to show you is going to be on your side. You can take the pillow, and use it
to relax your head. The leg you want to exercise is actually going to be on the floor. You
want your hips to be perpendicular to the floor, so you don't want them rolling back
and you don't want them rolled forward, but you want to be pretty straight up and down.
Now some people will take their top leg and put it behind them, and some will put will
actually bring it over in front of them. It just depends on how much flexibility you have
in your hip. I'm actually going to put mine behind, and keep it nice and straight, keep
those hips pretty up and down. You're going to keep your bottom leg straight. So you don't
want that knee bent, you want it nice and straight. And you want your toes again pointed
forward, so their not pointed up and their not pointed out. Their straight forward. Keeping
that leg nice and straight, you're going to just lift it up. It doesn't have to be super
high, you don't have to kick it way up in the air, but just about 4-5 inches off the
ground. Then slowly come back down. If that's pretty easy, if you have some ankle weights
at home, you can start adding some ankle weights. Just start off with 2 sets of 10, and see
how it feels, and then again, if it gets easier, you can either bump up the reps or bump up
the weight. Alright, so there you have it. Those are your inner thigh strengthening exercises.
If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section, and if you would
like to check out some other videos like the groin stretches video, please go to askdoctorjo.com
And remember be safe, have fun, and I hope you feel better soon!