5 Hip Adductor Exercises to Get a Tight Butt

The hip adductor muscles form the outer fabric of the trunk’s waistline, so tightening them up helps provide a cinched-in look. In fact, targeting these muscles is popular among celebrities and fitness models looking to show off their lean midsections.

If you have big lifts to do, high-rep sessions to endure, or are training in martial arts, building strong hips is super important. Adding a diverse range of hip adductor exercises to your workouts can improve overall athletic performance and combat injuries.

Best Hip Adductor Exercises

Here're five basic hip adductor exercises:

1) Clamshell

It's a great warm-up or cooldown exercise to prime the hip abductors and give them a unique motion, which most other lower body exercises leave out. Clamshells might feel strange to do initially, but they're great for inner thigh activation and should be included in your routine for that reason alone.

How to do it?

Lie on your side comfortably, with one leg bent and the other straight.
Lift your top knee so that it's parallel to your hip, and lower it back to the starting position.
Repeat the movement with the other leg, alternating sides after each set.

2) Fire Hydrant

It's a challenging isolation exercise for the hip abductors. You can make it even more difficult: loop the band around your legs above the knee, and push your muscles throughout the exercise.

How to do it?

When you do the exercise, keep your knees bent and hips square.
With one leg lifted, move it out to the side till it's level with your hip.
Return to the starting position, and switch legs.

3) Side Leg Raise

Fire hydrants and clamshells may be more challenging than side leg raises, but they’re also more effective. Each exercise works the same muscles, so if you can only fit in one, choose the one that doesn't cause you pain.

How to do it?

Lie on your side with your legs straight.
Lift the top leg as high as you can, and gently return it to the starting position.
Don't lift with your hips; feel the burn in your glutes and hip flexors.
Switch sides after ten or so reps, and continue for a couple of sets on each side.

4) Side Plank With Leg Lift

Performing hip adductors and side planks is a great way to work the hips and core. As the two areas are closely connected, working both at once gives you more bang for your buck. The key to this exercise is holding the side plank position till you feel it in your abs.

How to do it?

Lie on your side with your legs extended and upper body propped up by the elbow of that arm.
Brace your core muscles, and lift your hip off the ground so that you’re in a straight line from head to toe.
Raise your top leg as you would for a standard side leg raise, and switch sides to complete one rep.

5) Resistance Band Deadlift

Resistance bands are a great alternative to weights and can be used for many exercises.

One such exercise is the deadlift — a good way to strengthen the upper body and lower body muscles, like the glutes, hamstrings, and quadriceps.

How to do it?

Stand on the center of a resistance band with your legs about shoulder-width apart.
Bend forward at the hips so that you can grab onto the ends of the band.
Reverse the movement back to the starting position to complete one rep.

Takeaway

The most effective way to target the hip adductors muscles is by performing the aforementioned hip adductor exercises that require your legs to move away from the center of the body.

Traditional thigh lifts, as in a lying prone lift, yield mediocre results simply because they don’t isolate the muscles under scrutiny too effectively. The truth is, the hips are built to rotate, not to lift up and down, so incorporate some rotation into your next exercise, and you will feel your butt tighten up in no time at all.