Adductors

Adductors: what are they?

The adductor group is five muscles: adductor magnus, longus and brevis, plus pectineus and gracilis. They run from the pubic bone and the sitting bone down the inside of the thigh, with adductor magnus reaching almost to the knee. Magnus is the big one, and it is closer to a hamstring than to the small inner-thigh muscles most people picture: its posterior fibres extend the hip powerfully and it is heavily loaded in squats and deep lunges. Coaches who only think of the adductors as an inner-thigh machine muscle miss what they actually do.

What the adductors do

The named action is adduction, drawing the thigh towards the midline. That happens in sport far more than in the gym: cutting, changing direction, kicking, skating, and controlling the leg when it is forced outwards.

The larger role is stabilization and hip extension. Adductor magnus contributes to hip extension out of the bottom of a squat and in a hinge, working alongside the glutes and hamstrings. The whole group also fires in single-leg stance to hold the pelvis, working against the abductors on the outside of the hip. Balance between the two groups matters more than absolute strength in either.

How to train the adductors

Most adductor training happens indirectly, in deep squats and wide-stance work. Direct work becomes important for clients with a groin history, field and court athletes, and anyone whose adductor strength is clearly behind their abductor strength.

Groin strains and what a coach can do

Adductor strains cluster in sports with sprinting, kicking and rapid direction changes, and they tend to recur. The mechanism is the same as the hamstring: high force while the muscle is lengthening. A muscle that is strong in a shortened position but weak at length is exposed exactly where the injury happens.

The practical response is eccentric and long-length loading, introduced gradually. The Copenhagen plank is the best-known example and it is genuinely demanding, so start with the short-lever version, knee supported rather than foot supported, and hold for short durations before progressing. Adductor strength relative to the abductors is also worth checking; a large imbalance is a common finding in clients with a groin history.

This is training, not treatment. A current groin injury, and particularly pain around the pubic bone, needs clinical assessment before you load it.

What goes wrong in practice

The first pattern is a client who never squats past a narrow stance and a shallow depth. Adductor magnus barely gets loaded, and the inner thigh stays weak in exactly the range that sport demands. Widening the stance and adding depth loads it without any new equipment.

The second is the client who complains of a persistently tight groin and stretches it daily without any change. Tightness that comes back within hours is usually a strength or control issue rather than a length issue, and loaded work through range tends to help more than passive stretching.

The third is jumping straight to full Copenhagen planks. They produce serious soreness in an untrained client, and a strained adductor from an aggressive first session is not a good start. Two or three short sets of the easiest version, then progress over weeks.