Hip Adduction Machine
Trains the Adductors.
- Equipment
- A machine
- Mechanic
- Isolation
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Beginner
How to do it
- Sit in the machine and set the pads so they rest against the inside of your thighs, with your legs comfortably apart at the start.
- Set the starting width so you feel a stretch through the inner thigh but no strain.
- Sit back against the pad, hold the handles, and brace your stomach.
- Squeeze your legs together against the resistance until your knees meet or nearly meet.
- Pause briefly, then let the pads travel back out under control to the starting width.
Common mistakes
- Setting the starting position far too wide. The stretch should be comfortable; forcing a wider start under load is not what makes the exercise work.
- Letting the pads snap back out. The return is a controlled eccentric through the adductors' longest range.
- Dismissing it as a machine with a bad reputation. It loads adduction through a range, which nothing else in a normal program does, and the adductors are considerably more involved in squatting than most people expect.
- Believing it slims the inner thigh. Training a muscle makes it bigger — the same spot-reduction myth that attaches to the obliques, and wrong in the same way.