We need a certain amount of body fat to live healthily and to have energy for our daily activities. However, if you have excess fat built up, that can be unhealthy and may be unsightly. You might prefer to get rid of that fat and may be wondering how to deal with these trouble areas.
For some people, their trouble spots where they have more fat than they might like is their abdomen. For others, it’s their arms, neck, or legs. The thigh is one of those places where fat can accumulate over time, especially if you’re not watching your diet and you’re not exercising regularly. How to strengthen inner thighs and have a body you can be proud of?
I’ll share with you some of the best methods I’ve discovered for strengthening your thighs, toning your legs, and getting powerful leg muscles. I will include a range of different exercises you can do, so based on your activity level and ability level you may want to include some in your workouts and not bother with others.
Best Exercises to Strengthen and Tone your Inner Thighs
Lunges
How to strengthen your inner thighs and give them toned, healthy look? Lunges are a good place to start because they can be very versatile and can be modified in a lot of ways, and I also love them because of what a great initial exercise they are for someone who hasn’t exercised very much lately. You can do them at your own pace and your own intensity. They can be very easy or they can become a high intensity exercise that burns a lot of fat.
Your basic lunge requires that you start in a standing position with your legs side by side. From that starting position, you’ll take a long step forward with one leg and bend both knees. You usually would not go all the way down to where your back knee touches the ground. It should be hovering off the ground just slightly, and from that position you can return to the starting position. This is a single lunge.
To strengthen your thighs and increase the intensity of this workout, you can add dumbbells to it or leg weights. If you are not used to exercising, I would suggest starting off with the basic lunge with no added equipment. Keep it simple and slow to make sure that your body can stretch through the entire lunge just fine. Once you’re okay with the basic lunge, you can move on to something more complicated and strenuous. A really good leg strengthening lunge variation is the curtsy lunge, requiring you to keep your hands together and take a step backward for your lunge. This variation uses muscles that aren’t typically used, and this makes it a great part of a well-rounded workout regimen for your thighs.
Running
How to strengthen inner thighs? Cardio exercises work very well, and running is one of the best ones. It’s simple and like lunges can be done at your own pace. It works a lot of the body with a strong focus on your thighs.
If you make running a regular part of your exercise regimen, you will quickly get strong, powerful thighs. Just be careful about overdoing it and pushing yourself too hard. You could end up overtired and unable to do your workout some days because of how hard you push yourself. This is especially important when you first start out exercising. If you haven’t exercised in a while, start off with a light run that you know you can handle and work up from there.
This is an excellent method how to strengthen inner thighs for ballet or for whatever else, as you’ll get well defined and toned thighs that have enough strength to hold you up easily on a single leg.
How to strengthen inner thighs at home? I definitely recommend hill training, and I think you’ll find that most fitness experts will recommend you do this kind of training three times a week if you’re trying to strengthen your thighs. For really toned and defined thighs, hill training is something you really can’t top. It exerts your whole body and gets your heart pumping for excellent cardio exercise with full body benefits. At the same time, it really works your thighs, developing muscle there and helping them to become incredibly strong in a short amount of time.
This may be something you can do at home on a staircase or on a treadmill with an incline setting. You can also do mountain climber exercises. For this exercise, you place your palms on the floor ahead of you, extend one leg back as far as it will go and rest on your toes, and bend the other leg so that your knee is directly under your head. From there, switch the positions of the two legs back and forth in a climbing, running motion. Hillclimbers can be high intensity and really work your legs without putting a lot of resistance on them. They are great warm-up exercise for limbering up your legs and reducing tension.
Pilates
I definitely recommend doing Pilates to strengthen your inner thighs and to work your entire legs. You don’t need any equipment to do many of the Pilates exercises, but an Empower exercise bar can be a great tool to help boost your workout. You can use the bar for stretches and to help limber up your leg muscles and make them more pliable.
How to use the empower exercise bar to strengthen inner thighs? Doing resistance stretches can have a huge impact on your thighs. You can feel the burn as you push against the bar and feel the power it’s putting into your thighs.
It’s not a bad idea to start up a Pilates routine to strengthen your thighs at home. Even though the entire routine may not work your thighs, it can be helpful to work your entire body. No matter which part of the body is being worked, fat on the thighs can be reduced. You wouldn’t be able to specifically target your thigh fat anyways. If you want your thighs to look stronger and more defined, simply working out using any method can help.
Supine Inner Thigh Lift
This is an exercise that works your thighs that’s so easy to do you can lie down while you perform it. You lie on your back with your arms at your side, palms facing the floor. You’ll use your forearms and palms to help keep your balance and lift your legs as straight up into the air as you can. Keep your feet together as your legs are extended upwards and then stretch one leg to the side.
You can start with the right leg and extend it to the right side as far as you can stretch it comfortably. Then bring it back to the starting position. Switch legs and do this with the left leg and then repeat about 10 times on each leg. This helps to stretch out your legs and work your thigh muscles. It’s really good for loosening your muscles and warming up and is also a good way to increase your agility and flexibility.
This is an exercise I prefer to do late in my workout routine when I need a break. Lying on my back helps me to recover while still working my thighs. It’s definitely a great exercise to stick into your regimen after you work your upper body and you want to just work the lower body for a while as the upper body recovers.
So, these are just a few exercises you can start with and work into your routine, and I included both easy ones and more complicated ones, as well as a few suggestions for modifications to increase intensity and effectiveness.
