The best inner thigh exercises you can do at home are the sumo squat, the side-lying bottom-leg lift, the lateral lunge, the short-lever Copenhagen plank, and the cushion squeeze. Together they train hip adduction — pulling your thigh in toward the midline of your body — which is the one job the squat-and-lunge pattern in most leg workouts never really loads. Three of the five need nothing but floor space. The Copenhagen plank needs a chair or the edge of a sofa to rest your top leg on, and the squeeze needs a couch cushion or firm pillow between your knees, though your own closed fist works if you would rather not hunt one down.
Work through them as a circuit 2 to 3 times a week, 8 to 15 reps per move on the three that move and 15 to 20 second holds on the two that don’t, for 2 to 3 rounds. The full table with rest intervals is below.
Why Inner Thigh Strength Matters More Than It Sounds Like It Should
Your inner thighs are the adductor group — five muscles running from the pelvis down the inside of the femur. Their job is to bring the leg toward the midline and, more often in real life, to stop it drifting away from the midline when something pushes it there. That is what happens every time you change direction, plant a foot on a wet step, or ride out a stumble.
They are also the group most likely to be undertrained relative to everything around them. Squats, lunges, deadlifts and step-ups all load the quads, glutes and hamstrings hard, and the adductors mostly assist. A groin strain is one of the most common lower-body injuries in sports involving cutting and kicking, and weak adductors relative to the muscles pulling the other way are part of why. Training them directly is less about how your legs look and more about giving the knee and pelvis something to brace against.
If you are building a full lower-body routine, this guide pairs with our best leg exercises you can do at home, best glute exercises and best hamstring exercises — those cover the squat, extension and hinge patterns, and this one covers the pattern they leave out.
The 5 Best Inner Thigh Exercises You Can Do at Home
1. Sumo Squat
Stand with your feet noticeably wider than your shoulders and your toes turned out to roughly 45 degrees. Sit straight down, keeping your chest tall and your knees tracking over your toes, until your thighs are somewhere near parallel to the floor. Drive back up.
The resistance here is your own body weight and gravity. The wide stance is what makes it an adductor exercise rather than just a squat: with your feet outside your hips, your adductors have to work to pull your thighs back toward the midline as you stand, and to keep your knees from collapsing inward on the way down. A conventional stance barely asks them for either.
Watch for: knees caving in as you come up. If they do, you are letting the glutes and adductors hand the job to your knee ligaments. Slow down and take the stance in a few inches.
2. Side-Lying Bottom-Leg Lift
Lie on your side. Cross your top leg over the bottom one and plant that foot flat on the floor in front of your bottom thigh. Keep the bottom leg straight, and lift it as high as it will go without rolling your hips backward. Lower it under control — don’t let it drop.
The load is the weight of your own leg working against gravity, and it is more than it sounds: a leg is roughly a sixth of your body weight, and here it is lifting from an unhelpful angle with nothing to assist it. This is the most directly isolated adductor exercise on the list, which makes it the one to start with if the others feel like they are being done by everything except your inner thighs.
Watch for: rolling backward to cheat height. Your hips should stay stacked; a small lift done honestly beats a big one done by rotating.
3. Lateral Lunge
From standing, take a wide step directly out to one side. Bend that knee and push your hips back, keeping the trailing leg straight with its foot flat, until you feel a stretch along the inside of the straight leg. Push off the bent leg to return to standing.
Two things load here, both from body weight and gravity. The bending leg’s adductors control the descent and help drive you back to the middle. The straight trailing leg’s adductors are loaded in a lengthened position, which is where groin strains actually happen — training strength at long muscle lengths is the part most home routines skip entirely.
Watch for: letting the trailing foot roll onto its edge. Keep it flat and the stretch lands on the adductors rather than the ankle.
4. Copenhagen Plank (Short-Lever)
Lie on your side next to a chair or the edge of a sofa. Rest the knee and shin of your top leg on the seat, then lift your hips off the floor so your body forms a straight line supported by your forearm and that top leg. Hold. Let your bottom leg hang or rest lightly on the floor.
The chair is a support, not a weight — the resistance is your own body weight, hanging from the adductors of the top leg, which are the only thing holding your hips up. That is why this move is disproportionately hard for how simple it looks, and why it has become the exercise of choice in groin-injury prevention programs. Start with the knee on the chair rather than the foot; the short lever cuts the load substantially. If even that is too much, do the side-lying lift above until it isn’t.
Watch for: hips sagging toward the floor partway through the hold. When they drop, the set is over — stop there rather than grinding out the remaining seconds.
5. Cushion Squeeze
Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat. Put a couch cushion, firm pillow or your own closed fist between your knees. Squeeze it steadily — hard, but not so hard you hold your breath — and keep squeezing for the full hold.
The cushion is doing real work: it resists being compressed, and that resistance is what your adductors contract against. Pressing your bare knees together achieves nothing, because there is nothing between them to push back, so the object is the exercise rather than a prop. A firmer object makes it harder, which is also the simplest way to progress this one.
Watch for: clenching your glutes and abs to help. This one is meant to be a pure isometric squeeze; if everything else joins in, ease off the effort until it’s just the inner thighs.
Inner Thigh Workout: Put It Together
| Exercise | Reps / Time | Rounds | Rest Between | Primary Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sumo Squat | 12–15 reps | 2–3 | 30 sec | Adduction under body weight |
| Side-Lying Bottom-Leg Lift | 12–15 reps per side | 2–3 | 30 sec | Isolated adduction |
| Lateral Lunge | 8–10 reps per side | 2–3 | 45 sec | Adductors at long length |
| Copenhagen Plank (knee on chair) | 15–20 sec per side | 2–3 | 45 sec | Adductors holding body weight |
| Cushion Squeeze | 15–20 sec hold | 2–3 | 45 sec | Isometric adduction |
Run the five in order as a circuit, resting as listed, then repeat. Counting the work and the rest in the table above, two rounds comes out at roughly 13 to 15 minutes and three rounds at roughly 20 to 23 — so if you finish two rounds in a quarter of an hour, you have done it right, not rushed it. Two of the moves are done per side, which is where most of the work time goes.
Do this 2 to 3 times a week on non-consecutive days. The adductors are a smaller group working at long lengths, and they get sore in a way that shows up two days later rather than the next morning; a day between sessions is part of the plan rather than a concession.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Going for the deepest possible stretch on day one. The lateral lunge and the Copenhagen both load the adductors long, which is exactly the value and exactly the risk. Depth is something to earn over a few weeks, not something to prove in the first session.
Treating the squeeze as a warm-up. A hard isometric hold is a real contraction. If you can chat through it, you’re not squeezing hard enough for it to count.
Skipping the side-lying lift because it feels too easy. It usually feels easy because the hips are rolling back. Stack them properly and most people find they can’t get anywhere near 15 clean reps on the first try.
Adding inner thigh work on top of an already-heavy leg day. The adductors have been assisting through every squat and lunge you just did. Give them their own slot, or put them at the front of a lighter session.
How to Progress Beyond the Basics
The cleanest progression is lengthening the lever rather than adding weight. On the Copenhagen, slide the support point from your knee toward your ankle a few inches at a time — the full-length version, foot on the chair, is a serious exercise, and getting there is a genuine milestone. On the side-lying lift, add a pause of two or three seconds at the top of each rep before you start adding reps.
On the sumo squat and lateral lunge, deepen the range first, then hold something in front of your chest — a water jug, a loaded backpack, a heavy book — once the bodyweight version stops being challenging at the top of the rep range. For the squeeze, swap the cushion for something firmer that compresses less.
When you can hold a full-length Copenhagen for 20 seconds a side and finish three rounds of the circuit without the last one falling apart, this routine has done its job, and inner thigh work belongs alongside the rest of your leg training rather than as a separate project.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you actually train inner thighs without equipment?
Yes, and better than most muscle groups. Adduction is loaded by body weight and gravity in any position where the leg is working away from the midline — a side-lying lift, a wide stance, a body suspended from one thigh. Three of the five moves here need nothing at all, and the two that use a chair and a cushion use them as support and resistance rather than as gym equipment.
How often should I train my inner thighs?
Two to three times a week on non-consecutive days, which is what the table above is built around. More than that and you are cutting into recovery for a group that is also working hard during every squat, lunge and run you do.
Will these exercises slim my thighs or close a thigh gap?
No, and nothing else will either. You can’t decide where your body loses fat, and the space between your thighs is mostly a matter of how your pelvis is built. What these exercises do is make the muscles stronger, which is worth doing on its own terms.
Why do I feel the Copenhagen plank in my ribs instead of my inner thigh?
Usually the lever is too long or the hips have dropped. Move the support point closer to your knee and shorten the hold. If your side body is failing before your adductors are, the exercise isn’t testing what it’s meant to test.
Are these safe if I’ve had a groin strain before?
Progressive adductor loading is a mainstay of groin rehab, but “previously injured” is exactly the case where a clinician’s read matters more than an article’s. Start with the side-lying lift and the cushion squeeze, leave the long-length work until later, and get cleared first if the strain was recent or keeps coming back.
What’s the single best one if I only do one?
The Copenhagen plank, at whatever lever length you can hold with your hips up. It loads the adductors harder than anything else on this list that doesn’t need a gym, which is why it shows up in nearly every serious groin-injury prevention program.
Do I need resistance bands or a thigh machine?
No. A band or a machine adds convenience and a finer way to add load, but neither trains anything the moves above don’t already reach — and the Copenhagen is harder than most machine settings people actually use.
Where to Go From Here
Inner thigh work is a small piece of a lower body that also needs squatting, hinging and single-leg strength. If you would rather follow trainer-led sessions than assemble a routine yourself, Daily Burn’s workout video library and 1:1 nutrition coaching cover the whole lower body across programs built for every level. Try it risk-free — it’s backed by a money-back guarantee.