The Adductors In Yoga

Among all of our thigh muscles, the adductors probably don’t get the attention they deserve in yoga. Most people are familiar with the quadriceps group on the front of our thigh. And they know about the hamstrings on the back of our thigh. You might even have heard of structures like the iliotibial band, which runs down the lateral, or outside of our thigh. The adductors are the group of muscles that complete the three-dimensional picture of the thigh. They’re the group of muscles on the inside of our thigh.

What are the adductors?

There are five muscles in the adductor group. They are the pectineus, adductor brevis, adductor longus, gracilis, and adductor magnus. Four of the adductors are located more anteromedially (front and inside). Those are pectineus, adductor brevis, adductor longus, and gracilis. Each of those four attaches at their proximal (top) end to the pubic bone. The adductor magnus attaches proximally to the inferior ramus of the ischium, the ischial tuberosity (your sit bone), and with a few fibers to the most posterior portion of the pubic bone.

These five muscles form a fan of muscle tissue that fills the space on the inside of your thigh between your pelvis and your knee. The short pectineus muscle attaches distally at the pectineal line. That’s a bony ridge on the femur. The longer adductor brevis and adductor longus attach to separate areas along the linea aspera. That’s a line of raised bone on the back of the femur. The gracilis goes all the way past the knee at its distal end and attaches to the pes anserine, a flat area of bone on the upper portion of the tibia. Adductor magnus, the largest of the five adductor muscles, attaches at its distal end to a long area of the linea aspera. It also attaches to a bony projection on the medial condyle of the femur, called the adductor tubercle.

Why are the adductors important?

The adductors are particularly important in balancing stability, movement, and tension around the hip joints. This group of inner thigh muscles is an important part of creating a balance of tension between the outside and inside of our hip. That’s especially true during walking. All adductors are involved in adduction of the thigh. The more anteriorly positioned adductors, pectineus, adductor brevis, and adductor longus, may also assist with flexion of the hip. However, that depends on the position of the body.

Adductor magnus, the more posteriorly positioned adductor, can also assist the hamstrings with extension of the hip. Again, how much it’s involved in that action depends on the position of the body. When we walk, our adductors work in relation to our abductors. They stabilize and then relax tension at the right moments to allow us to take a step and then shift our weight from one leg to the other.

How do we use the adductors in yoga?

The balance of tension between the inside of the hip and the outside, as well as front versus back, is important in yoga too. Tight adductors can be part of pulling our knee and/or hip in directions that we’re not intending. That comes up in postures like side angle and revolved side angle. When you see your knee falling in medially, tight inner thigh muscles can be part of the source. That balance of tension between the inside and outside of the hip is important for stability in yoga postures. For example, think about balancing on one leg, as in utthita hasta padangusthasana. Too much tension on either the inside or outside of our hip can make it harder to navigate finding balance.

When do we need to engage our inner thigh muscles?

Sometimes we need to engage the adductors to balance out the strength of our abductors, like the lateral gluteal muscles. Those of us who run, cycle, hike, etc., tend toward more strength in the abductors compared to our adductors. In poses like shalabhasana, purvottanasana, and navasana, when we need to squeeze our legs together, we have an opportunity to work on engaging the adductor muscle group. If we practice poses like those consistently, over time, that can help balance the tension between the inside and outside of the hip.

Arm balances

The ability to engage the adductors and create a connection along the inside line of our body becomes especially important in arm balancing postures where our legs are together, like headstand, pincha mayurasana (forearm balance), and handstand. A strong felt-sense connection to our inner thigh muscles can help us engage the whole core of our body. That’s essential if we’re going to practice arm balances.

Adductors in urdhva dhanurasana

Engaging the adductor muscle group also comes up in backbending postures like urdhva dhanurasana. In upward bow, our strong gluteus maximus and deep six lateral rotators can pull us too much into lateral hip rotation and extension. That can create compression in the lower back/lumbar spine. Sometimes a gentle intention to engage the adductors is enough to balance out the combined strength of the other muscle groups and keep things in a better balance.

How do we stretch tight adductors?

We can stretch the inner thigh muscles one leg at a time or both legs at a time. Poses like janu sirsasana A stretch the adductors on the bent knee leg. A cue that those adductors are tight is that the knee is floating in the air in janu sirsasana A. Other muscles on the back and side of the hip, like the lateral gluteals and deep six lateral rotators, can also contribute to tension that makes it difficult for the knee to relax toward the ground in janu sirsasana A. However, the adductor group is likely one part of that pattern. Baddha konasana is the classic adductor stretch that lengthens the adductor group on both legs at the same time.

Stretching adductor magnus

Adductor magnus is a special case among the group of inner thigh muscles. It is the most posterior of the adductor group. It’s also the only one that attaches at its proximal end to the ischial tuberosity. All three muscles in the hamstring group also attach to the ischial tuberosity at their proximal end. Because of its location and direction of pull, adductor magnus can be part of restricting wide-legged forward bending. If you can fold forward fairly easily with your legs together and parallel, but not in a wide-legged forward bend, then adductor magnus is probably tight.

The poses where you feel restricted, those wide-legged forward bends, are also the same poses you can use to stretch this tight thigh muscle. All the variations of prasarita padottanasana, the standing wide-legged forward bend, and poses like upavishta konasana, the seated wide-legged forward bend, will stretch adductor magnus. Even supta konasana, the supine wide-legged forward band, will stretch adductor magnus.

Adductor magnus and sit bone pain

Adductor magnus also comes up in yoga when we look for the source of sit bone pain. When we’re trying to track down the sometimes elusive source of sit bone pain, it’s important to remember that adductor magnus attaches to the ischial tuberosity (sit bone) along with the three hamstrings. This can make things tricky when distinguishing the effects of the hamstrings versus adductor magnus, in the case of sit bone pain. Just like overdoing forward bending with legs together can irritate the hamstring attachment at the sit bone, a similar thing can happen when we overdo wide-legged forward bending. We can irritate the attachment of adductor magnus at the sit bone. If we remember that adductor magnus attaches along with the hamstrings, it can help us track the source of our sit bone pain and form a better hypothesis about how to manage it.