Hate Your Flabby Inner Thighs? How to Firm Inner Thighs

A good inner thigh routine is the hip adduction machine  —  but wait, before you blow the hip adduction machine off because it hasn’t helped firm your inner thighs  —  this machine works only if you use it a certain way.

All the time, I see women bouncing their legs back and forth on the hip adduction machine. This contraption is also known as the inner thigh machine.

It’s called hip adduction because the motion is created by your hip joint, and it’s an adduction-type of motion: To adduct means to bring together towards the midline of the body.

So when you use this machine, you are bringing your inner thighs together against resistance.

Many women have loose, flabby inner thighs. The flab is the muscle, not fat. Muscle and fat are two distinctly different body tissues.

So when inner thighs are flabby, this is because the adductor muscles are not toned.

Set the weight light enough so that you can do 20 reps.

Set the machine’s leg pads out farther than your natural range of motion, before you get into the machine. This will guarantee greatest range of motion.

Now, get in, but you’ll need to hold the leg pads in a bit so that you can get in.

If you get in BEFORE you set up the leg pads, you will shortchange yourself as far as range of motion. Maximum range of motion is key to this.

Let the leg pads slowly drift apart until your natural tightness makes them stop. Relax and take a few breaths.

Now, start closing your legs. When you close them as far as possible, hold them in this position for four seconds.

In fact, squeeze them hard towards each other so that the portions of the machine where your inner knees are against, are pressed firmly against each other, no wavering at all.

Make sure the knee supports are against each other as though stuck like that with Velcro.

After four seconds, release all the way back; not half way, but all the way.

Immediately repeat the motion you just did, squeezing the knee supports together for four seconds. Do 20 reps. Remember to always hold that squeeze for four seconds.

Your inner thighs will burn. If you cannot make it to 20 reps while following the above technique to a tee, then the weight is too heavy. You may have to go down to 40 or even 30 pounds.

The four-second squeeze, plus the wider starting point (legs further apart than what they usually are) make this routine harder.

If 20 reps, following this technique, was a breeze, increase the weight. Do three sets, 30 seconds in between each set.

Do this regimen once or twice a week. After six to eight weeks, please write in the comments box to this article about the results you’re getting.

Note: Inner thigh routines will NOT trim fat from your inner thighs. No. No. No isolated fat loss will occur.

This is strictly about firming up loose, flabby muscle. Many women with skinny legs have flabby inner thighs.

If you want to shave inches off your inner thighs, you will have to work on losing overall body fat through a comprehensive workout program and proper nutrition.

Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.