Adductor Stretches to Improve Your Flexibility

Here are six adductor stretches that can relieve tight muscles in the inner thigh and groin area and improve flexibility.

What Are the Adductors?

The adductors are the muscles of the inner thigh: five muscles that stretch from your pubic bone down your femur (and past your knee in one case).

They are:

• Adductor Magnus: The largest of the five. It has two heads; the posterior portion behaves like a third hamstring head and is actually considered part of the hamstrings by some.¹
• Adductor Longus: This muscle is like a long strap running down the middle. When an athlete gets a groin strain, it’s often the adductor longus that’s been injured.²
• Adductor Brevis: A flat muscle, shaped like a triangle, right beneath the longus.
• Gracilis: A thin, superficial muscle running all the way from your pelvis down past the knee joint into your shin. Cool fact: You can function normally without this muscle, because other thigh muscles take over its function. Surgeons can remove it and use it for reconstructive surgery in other parts of the body. ³
• Pectineus: Part of the adductors, this flat muscle in the upper and inner thigh actually functions primarily as a hip flexor.⁴

Their main job is hip adduction, which means bringing your thigh toward the midline, like squeezing your knees together, but they also help stabilize your pelvis and hip.

Depending on your hip position, different fibers can help with different things, like hip flexion, extension, and rotation.

For lifters, adductors are central in many lower-body exercises, and tight or weak adductors can make deep squats a distant dream.

Should You Stretch Your Adductor Muscles?

Adductor stretches can improve your hip mobility and make deep squats, side lunges, and other exercises that require a wide stance or side-to-side movement easier to do.

They can also be essential for athletes who need a lot of hip abduction for their sport, like runners, footballers, hockey players, martial artists, or dancers.

Plus, a good adductor stretch can feel great if you have tight groin muscles.

But if you already strength train with a full range of motion, you might not need dedicated adductor stretches. And if they’re tight because they’re weak or you’ve had an injury, stretching isn’t the solution.

Being “more flexible” isn’t always better. In general, you want enough range of motion plus enough strength to control that range. There is little intrinsic value in being able to stretch a muscle or joint into positions you never use, especially if you lack strength in that range.

Full-ROM lifting is as effective as stretching for flexibility, and it makes you stronger in those positions at the same time.^{5 6}

Stretch if your adductors are a limiting factor in your training, or you enjoy how it feels. But if they’re not, and you don’t feel tight or restricted, full-ROM strength training is probably enough for most people.

6 Great Adductor Stretches

Note: these adductor stretches are not for rehab, unless you’ve been expressly told to stretch by someone like your physio.

It’s common for people who have injured themselves to take to stretching soon after, but that’s generally not what you want to do.

These are for normal tightness and improving a healthy range of motion.

1. Butterfly Stretch

The butterfly stretch is a classic inner thigh stretch. It’s easy to set up, easy to scale, and good if you’re a beginner.

How to Do the Butterfly Stretch

1. Sit on the floor.
2. Bring the soles of your feet together.
3. Let your knees fall out to the sides.
4. Hold your feet or ankles.
5. Let your hips relax.
6. Hold the stretch.

You can lean forward slightly from your hips to increase the stretch.

Don’t bounce your knees. Don’t round your back.

If you have the flexibility, you can lower your thighs to the ground, but don’t use your hands to force your legs down or stretch to the point of pain.

2. Yoga Squat

The yoga squat, called Malasana, is a deep squat with your knees opened outward. It’s good for hip and ankle mobility and for stretching your inner thighs and groin.

It can carry over nicely to all types of squats, Olympic lifting, and even deadlifts. A passive squat hold like this won’t fix real mobility issues for an exercise, though. You need a loaded range of motion in the actual exercise, too.

How to Do the Yoga Squat

1. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and your toes slightly outward.
2. Bend your knees and lower yourself into a deep squat.
3. Keep your heels on the floor if you can.
4. Bring your hands together in front of your chest.
5. Place your elbows inside your knees and lightly press them outward.
6. Hold the stretch.

If your heels lift (very common), you can place small plates under them.

3. Side Lunge Adductor Stretch

The side lunge stretches your inner thigh and teaches your hips to handle side-to-side positions. You can do static or dynamic side lunge adductor stretches.

How to Do the Side Lunge Adductor Stretch

1. Stand with your feet wide.
2. Shift your body weight to one side and bend that knee into a squat.
3. You can hold onto something in front of you or touch the ground for balance.
4. Keep the other leg straight with the foot flat or angled. Keep the straight leg active, not relaxed.
5. Feel the stretch along the inner thigh of your straight leg.
6. Hold the stretch.

For the dynamic version, stand with your feet wide, bend one knee, and drop your hips down toward that side. Go deep enough to feel the stretch in your adductors, then push back up to the center, and alternate sides.

4. Standing Wide Knees Adductor Stretch

This is a standing and beginner-friendly version of the advanced middle splits stretch.

How to Do the Standing Wide Knees Adductor Stretch

1. Stand with your feet wider than your shoulders.
2. Push your knees outward and place your hands on or above them.
3. Squat down until you feel a stretch in your inner thighs, to where your thighs are roughly parallel to the ground, if you can.
4. Hold the stretch.

Keep your knees tracking in the same direction as your toes; don’t let them collapse inward.

5. Frog Stretch

The frog stretch (or frog pose) is common in yoga. It has at least two things going for it: it’s effective, and it has you looking like everyone’s favorite amphibian.

How to Do the Frog Stretch

1. Start on all fours.
2. Keep your knees in line with your hips and your lower legs roughly parallel.
3. Walk your knees out to the sides until you feel a stretch through your groin and inner thighs.
4. Support yourself with your hands or forearms.
5. Hold the stretch.

Don’t force your knees wider than they comfortably go. It’s a pretty intense stretch, so you want to be warmed up before you do it.

6. Wide-Leg Forward Fold

This is a good stretch for the adductors and, to some extent, the hamstrings. It’s scalable, so it works whether you’re intermediate or advanced.

How to Do the Wide-Leg Forward Fold

1. Sit on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you.
2. Spread your legs wide into a V-shape, with your knees and toes pointing upward.
3. Sit straight and lean forward from your hips (not your waist) until you feel a stretch through your inner thighs and possibly hamstrings.
4. Hold the stretch.

In addition to the static hold, you can also do a dynamic version where you actively “fold” your upper body back and forth.

You can adapt this stretch to your mobility; you don’t need to spread your legs super-wide or touch your chest to the floor. As you gain flexibility, you can spread them wider and lean more forward.

When to Stretch Your Adductors

You can do your adductor stretches before your training sessions as part of a warm-up, after working out, or on a completely separate occasion. But there are a few things you should know.

If you’re preparing for your workout, dynamic stretching is better than static stretching and improves your explosive strength.⁷

For example, get warm first, then do a few exercises like side lunges, Cossack squats, or controlled leg swings. Then go to your ramp-up sets for the session.

Static stretching, on the other hand, can decrease your strength for some time.⁸ It’s probably only relevant if you hold the stretch for 60 seconds or more, so if your adductors are tight and a 30-second stretch helps you get into position for a squat, then go ahead.

Also, some research has shown that if you do a lot of static stretching before your workouts on a regular basis, you might gain less strength.⁹

So, skip the several minutes of passive stretching last thing before a heavy workout. You’re better off doing that at another time, like after training or later in the day.

Long-term stretching is a reliable way to improve your flexibility, but you don’t have to do it right after a workout if you don’t want to.¹⁰

Avoid These Stretching Mistakes

The inner thighs and groin can get irritated pretty easily if you force the range when you do your adductor stretches. And pulling a groin muscle takes two seconds, but rehabbing one can take 2–4 business months.

Here are some big don’ts when you stretch them.

1. Pushing too hard. Stretching isn’t like lifting, where more intensity almost always means better results. Some discomfort is OK, but don’t go above a comfortable 5–6 out of 10 on the discomfort (not pain) scale. At least not unless you’re an advanced, experienced stretcher.
2. Bouncing. Fast and aggressive bouncing in a sensitive groin position is not the best of ideas. Ease slowly into the stretches instead.
3. Stretching cold. Yes, stretching cold is a thing, but unless you really know what you’re doing, do some cardio, air squats, leg swings, or lunges to warm up the area first. Some light cold stretching is fine, but you’re not likely to get into a position that yields results safely without being decently warm first.
4. Stretching without strengthening. If you have weak adductors, they can feel tight because of that. And flexibility without strength and stability is joint laxity waiting for an injury. Strength training + stretching is the way to go. If you only do one, keep the strength training.
5. Stretching an injury. Worth mentioning again. If you force an injured muscle (or joint) into a position it doesn’t want to go, you can make things worse instead of speeding up the healing.

A Simple Adductor Stretch Routine

Here’s a routine you can use today.

Start with 2 minutes of light movement: walking, cycling, air squats, or leg swings. If it’s leg day, your leg workout will do the trick, too.

Then do:

Stretch	Time
Butterfly Stretch	30–40 seconds
Side Lunge Stretch	30–40 seconds
Frog Stretch or Wide-Leg Forward Fold	30–40 seconds

That’s enough. You can repeat it once, but you don’t need to turn your stretching into a second workout.

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You can find all the adductor stretches in this guide in our free workout log app, StrengthLog, along with many other neat mobility exercises for the entire body.

But where the app really shines is for tracking your training. If you don’t track your training, making progress becomes much more of a challenge than it needs to be.

Final Rep

Your adductors aren’t just sitting there looking pretty. They’re your guardians of hip stability and squat depth.

Flexibility without strength is not enough, so strength work always takes priority (and is enough for general mobility for most).

But if you need that extra range to get you where you need to be mobility-wise, give these adductor stretches a try.

Thanks for reading, and good luck with your stretching. And your training!

And for more great stretching exercises, check out these resources:

• Hamstring Stretches to Improve Your Flexibility
• Glute Stretches to Improve Your Flexibility
• Quad Stretches to Improve Your Flexibility

Last reviewed: 2026-09-17

References

1. Orthop J Sports Med. 2016 Jan 11;4(1):2325967115625055. Anatomy of the Adductor Magnus Origin.
2. Am J Sports Med. 2023 Nov;51(13):3591-3603. Acute Adductor Muscle Injury: A Systematic Review on Diagnostic Imaging, Treatment, and Prevention.
3. Anatomy, Bony Pelvis and Lower Limb: Thigh Gracilis Muscle. StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2026 Jan.
4. Am J Sports Med. 2012 Jul;40(7):1654-63. Recruitment and activity of the pectineus and piriformis muscles during hip rehabilitation exercises: an electromyography study.
5. Healthcare (Basel). 2021 Apr 7;9(4):427. Strength Training versus Stretching for Improving Range of Motion: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
6. Sports Med. 2023 Jan 9;53(3):707–722. Resistance Training Induces Improvements in Range of Motion: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
7. BMC Sports Sci Med Rehabil. 2023 Aug 29;15(1):106. A systematic review and net meta-analysis of the effects of different warm-up methods on the acute effects of lower limb explosive strength.
8. J Sport Health Sci. 2024 May 10;13(6):805–819. Revisiting the stretch-induced force deficit: A systematic review with multilevel meta-analysis of acute effects.
9. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 37(5):p 1145-1156, May 2023. Does Stretching Training Influence Muscular Strength? A Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression.
10. Sports Med. 2023 Mar;53(3):723-745. Chronic Effects of Static Stretching Exercises on Muscle Strength and Power in Healthy Individuals Across the Lifespan: A Systematic Review with Multi-level Meta-analysis.