Written with love, by Nikki Lian
Although you may be feeling like you’re getting a full body workout working through your exercise routine, sometimes certain areas of our body can lag behind. Unfortunately, one of these body parts happens to be the inner thighs. If you’re having some what of a similar problem, here are a few exercises you can add to your leg routine that will pick up the pace of this stubborn area.
Reverse Jane Fondas
One of my older clients calls her side leg lifts “Jane Fondas” so the name stuck. A modification of this basic exercise is what I call a Reverse Jane Fonda. Lay on your side, and put your top leg over your bottom leg with your foot flat and knee bent (see below). Instead of raising your top leg, you’re raising your straightened bottom leg, targeting your inner thighs. You may have done this particular exercise in a recent pilates class.
Sumo Squats with Kettle Bell
You don’t’ necessarily need a kettle bell to do this exercise, but if you’d like to add a little weight to your workout you can (or you can use a dumbbell). Like a plie squat, get into a wide stance. With the kettle bell in your hand and your feet slightly turned out, go into a deep squat. We don’t turn our feet out all the way on this one because we want our butt to get as low to the ground as possible.
Fire Hydrants
You can probably tell from the picture why we call these Fire Hydrants. I like to add these in sequence with a lower-body floor exercise such as Butt Blasters and Jane Fondas. Down on your mat on all fours and keeping your knee bent, lift your leg (as if you were a dog doing your business on a hydrant—sorry but it’s the best way to describe it)!! Bring your knee back down to starting position.
Side Lunges
Side lunges are basically a stretch you are doing over and over again. Take a big step out to the side, keeping your feet squared. The leg that is planted keep straight, and the other leg bend until you feel a stretch in your inner thigh of the leg that is straight. Once you feel the stretch, push back up with the foot that you stepped with into starting position.
I like to do each exercise on one leg first, and then switch to the other side. I’d recommend 12-15 repetitions each set for three sets. You should start feeling it after the workout and if you don’t feel it’s enough, add weight!! Leg weights are great to use and are usually adjustable to your comfort level.
A special shout out to my client Beth, who actually likes working this body part out the best and is making tremendous progress!!
