The addutors may be the most overlooked muscles we have. They consist of five muscles of the inner thigh that connect to the pelvis – the Gracilis, the Pectineus, the Adductor Magnus, Adductor Brevis and Adductor Longus.

Their action is mainly to move your inner thigh inward but they also assist in hip flexion and hip extension and hip rotation. They help stabilize your pelvis and play an important role in many daily activities such as walking, running, dancing and playing golf. We also engage our adductors when we do deep bends/squats, lunges and twists. We need a good balance between our adductors and the opposing muscles (the antagonists) such as the the abductors, the gluteus and tensor fascia latea (TFL) in order to keep our pelvis level in order to stay injury free.

Weak or tight adductors (or abductors or gluteus) can lead to the pelvis not being leveled which then in turn cause other mucles to compensate and become overly tight, whereas other muscles may weaken. This can cause you to get hip, back shoulder, neck and knee problems.

If you are squatting with weak adductors, it is difficult to keep hour knees in the right posistion which may lead to a knee injury.

Many people have over-developed quadriceps and under-developed inner thight muscles, I am unfortunately being one of them.

Yoga and Pilates are good activities for maintaining muscle balanceas they demand strong inner thigh muscles. You can maintain muscular balance yourself by incorporating a stretch and strengthening program to your weekly routine for your adductors, abductors and gluteus muscles and TFL. Massage can of course also assist in keeping the muscles flexible and I am happy to give you advice on a stretch and strengthening program.

So do not forget or ignore your adductors!