Village Gym’s Beginner Guide On Inner Thigh Workouts For Women

Creating a comprehensive workout routine for your body and your fitness goals is no simple task. For those taking their first steps into the world of fitness, it can prove challenging to exercise all the muscle groups in an effective way to see progression over the course of weeks to months.

A vital part of any workout routine is the legs and of the legs, the thighs are important to focus upon. Today we’ll be covering inner thigh workout exercises for women that you can do to support the healthy development of strong thigh muscles.

Before you begin any muscle workout, always stretch! Stretching helps minimise potential muscular injuries.

Fun Fact: research has shown that stretching your inner thighs appropriately will help with overall muscle strength and the hip flexion the inner thigh facilitates.

An Overview Of Popular Inner Thigh Exercises For Women

1. Side Lunges

2. Sumo Squats

3. Side Plank Leg Lifts

4. Hip Adduction

Read on to discover more about these exercises!

A Short Introduction To Stretching Inner Thighs

Like we’ve mentioned, having a quick stretching session before your workout can decrease injury and improve the effectiveness of your workout. A simple stretch to try:

Seated Butterfly Stretch

• Take a seat on the floor, on a padded surface if required.

• Bring the soles of your feet together until your knees are pointing outwards. You should be sitting with your legs in a rough diamond shape.

• Hold your feet with your hands and slowly pull your feet in towards your body until you feel a stretch beginning.

• Gently lean forwards with your upper body, lowering your head towards your feet.

• While lowering, use your elbows to push your knees down towards the floor as much as possible.

• Continue lowering as much as you can before it becomes too painful.

• Hold this position for 20 to 30 seconds.

• Gently sit back up and slide your feet away from your body slowly.

Other notable inner thigh stretches to research include:

• Frog Stretch

• Standing Side Lunge

• Wall Splits

1. Side Lunges

Side Lunges prove to be one of the easier inner leg workouts for inner thighs. They have the benefit of requiring no equipment, meaning they can easily be worked into a home or a gym workout.

That being said, side lunges are great for progression as they can be completed while holding weights to increase their difficulty and improve your overall gains.

As a beginner it isn’t recommended to incorporate weighted side lunges into your workout routine just yet, but this can be a goal to strive towards after several months of improvement.

If you do decide to use a weight, start with something small like a 2kg or 3kg weight.

How to do side lunges:

[insert video example]

Step by step instructions:

• Position your feet a shoulder width apart to begin. Your hands should not offer any assistance to the exercise, so they can be held out to your front to improve your balance or can be placed on your hips - either option works.

• If you are beginning with your right leg, make sure your left leg stays straight during the full lunge. This is important to gain the most out of the exercise and to prevent any potential injuries.

• Keeping your toes pointing forwards, step out to your right hand side and lengthen your stance to around two shoulder widths. Bend your right knee as you lunge to the side. Extend the lunge downwards as if you were sitting in a chair.

• For this exercise keep the majority of your weight on the right heel as your lunge.

• Step back to your original starting position and repeat for the left hand side to complete one set.

• Conduct as many side lunge sets as are required for your fitness goals.

Top Tip: avoid leaning too far to your lunging side when performing. This will prevent excessive strain on your muscle groups. Keeping your back straight will also help with balance while lunging.

If you are choosing to do your workout at home, then our excellent blog is catering to help you curate a fantastic home workout routine. Give it a read!

2. Sumo Squats

Sumo Squats are a variant of squatting that is designed to apply extra strain to your inner thighs, ultimately strengthening them. Much like ordinary squats, the best bit of sumo squats is that they can be incorporated into any exercise routine, be it at the gym or at home.

These kinds of exercises are great for beginners as they are low-impact exercises designed to help you improve using nothing but your own bodyweight. This lessens the chance of injury when starting out.

Top Tip: when progressing, using the specialised weights at your local Village Gym is a great way to improve the difficulty and effectiveness of your workout. However, when progressing, we wouldn’t recommend going higher than 3kg weighted sumo squats to begin with.

How to do sumo squats:

[insert video example]

Step by Step Instructions:

• Begin by standing with your feet roughly a one and a half shoulder widths apart. Your feet can be turned in or turned out, but ideally they should be facing directly forwards and be parallel to your shoulders/bodily centreline.

• Hinge at your hip joint, and squat down as if sitting into a chair. Keep your back straight as you do so to prevent injury to your lower back. 

• When squatting down, always bend your knees and ensure that your bodyweight is spread out across both legs equally. These are very crucial tips to heed when working sumo squats. 

• If you are finding it hard to balance while sumo squatting, you can use your arms to help. As you squat down, raise your arms out directly in front of you.

• Continue to squat, making sure your thighs are parallel to the floor at the bottom of the squat. Don’t worry if you can’t get them fully parallel to the floor, but do try to make them as parallel as you can.

• Hold the squat at the bottom of the movement briefly for around a second.

• Stand back up straight by pushing down through your heels and pushing your hips forward. This should straighten the bend in your legs.

• Repeat as many times as desired.

For one set, you should repeat these squats for around 10 repetitions, taking a short break of up to 20 seconds, before repeating another 10 repetitions. Continue this process until you’ve accomplished 30 repetitions. This would be one set.

Usually, one set is enough for a workout routine, but this is highly dependent on your fitness goals and general level of fitness.

Check out our Weight Training Tips For Women for more insight into building up your bodily muscle groups.

3. Side Plank Leg Lifts

This exercise is designed to be a little bit more difficult than the first two exercises we’ve featured. The difficulty in side plank leg lifts is that you’ll need decent balance to perform them correctly. However, they are an excellent exercise to tone inner thighs.

It is worth noting that while this exercise does work the inner thigh, it isn’t exclusively an inner thigh workout. It will also help you work your body’s core muscles, making it a great addition to any workout routine.

Much like the sumo squats and the side lunges, this exercise can be performed anywhere - be it a gym or a home environment.

How do to side plank leg lifts:

[insert video example]

Step by Step Instructions:

• Begin on the floor, in a side plank position. It may help to use a mat to reduce discomfort on the arms and elbows. A side plank position is accomplished by having your arm holding up your body weight, with your elbow directly under your shoulder, the front of your body facing the nearest wall, and with your feet stacked vertically on top of one another. If you are starting with your right hand side supporting your weight, your left shoulder should be pointing towards the ceiling.

• In this position lift your top leg up towards the ceiling. Keep both legs straight as you do so. Ensure that your core and hips are engaged in the process of lifting your leg.

• Lower your leg towards its starting position but don’t let it touch your other leg.

• Repeat the process of raising the leg back up towards the ceiling.

• Complete your desired repetitions and switch sides to do the other leg.

Top Tip: if you are struggling to balance this exercise while in the side plank position, use the arm that isn’t holding your weight to help. Raising this arm up or placing it on the floor near your belly or lower back can help. If you do place it on the floor, make sure it doesn’t support too much weight.

4. Hip Adduction

Hip adduction has already been featured on some of our exercise guides, such as our hip & waist workout guide for beginners, and for good reason. It is an excellent exercise for improving and strengthening your leg muscle groups.

While it isn’t regarded exclusively as an inner thigh machine, the hip adduction machine does a fantastic job of working the inner thighs.

Hip adduction will also workout your outer thigh muscle groups as well as improving hip joint flexibility. 

How to do hip adduction:

[insert video example]

Step by step instructions for hip adductions:

• Before starting, adjust the machine so that you can easily use the machine for your body size. This includes adjusting the seat and the pads. Ensure the pads are aligned with your inner thighs; just above the knee joints.

• Sit on the machine with your legs bent at roughly 90 degrees. Always have your back straightened against the backrest as this will prevent you from getting lower back injuries from the strain.

• Adjust the weights to your fitness goals. If you are arching your back too much during the adduction, lower the weight. To avoid injuries, don’t use a weight that is too heavy for you. You should be able to do multiple repetitions with a fair amount of ease before it starts getting difficult.

• When ready, pull against the pads of the machine to bring them inwards towards your bodily centreline. Continue this movement until your legs are fully contracted as far as they can go, or until you feel your hips stretching. Hold this position briefly.

• Now, gently and slowly bring your legs back to rest at your starting position.

• Repeat this for your desired quantity of repetitions.

Top Tip: always seek the help of the gym staff if you are struggling to adjust a machine to your body. Never workout on a machine that isn’t suited to you.

Make Your Routine Flawless

When beginning, the inner thigh exercises detailed above will help you begin in the world of self improvement and improving leg strength. If you don’t have access to a gym, the first three exercises can be performed anywhere to ensure you can make gains - be it on a casual or a more serious basis.

For those wanting a more curated approach to fitness and those looking for adept guidance when working towards their fitness goals, Village Gym offers everything you’d need for your fitness journey - from personal trainers that are certified to provide detailed and attentive support to state-of-the-art machines designed to provide a comprehensive workout.

Our membership options are designed to cater to all kinds of people from fitness fanatics to people looking for a more casual gym experience. 

Our impressive facilities are tailored to provide a whole host of options for your fitness journey, including pools, saunas, and spas. Choosing Village Gym means choosing a holistic approach to your fitness and self improvement.

Find your closest Village Gym and book a tour today!

FAQs About Inner Thigh Exercises

How Can I Tone My Inner Thighs Fast?

There’s no shortcut to having toned inner thighs. However, rapid progression can certainly be achieved through personal training, a healthy diet, and specifically tailored routines for working the inner thighs.

Does Walking Tighten My Inner Thighs?

Yes. Doing more walking is one of the easiest ways to improve your inner thighs as walking will use your hamstrings as well as the quadriceps. Going a lengthy walk every day is a great way to begin tightening or toning your thighs.

Can Flabby Inner Thighs Be Toned?

While spot reduction of fat anywhere on the body isn’t possible, working out certain areas or regions of the body will help with the reduction of fat overall. Focusing on exercises designed to improve inner thigh strength is a great way to begin losing some weight.