Last week a devoted viewer aksed us a GREAT question about targetting the inner thighs.  Here is her query:

WAIT!!  Before you dismiss this "problem" as irrelevant to your situation, think again!  When YOU "squeeze your inner thighs", what are you thinking about?  Are you thinking about squeezing your knees?  If so, you just might be missing the upper most inner thigh muscles... key muscles for stabilization.  On top of that, if your are super skinny or your hips are naturally wide (we're talking bones here) meaning the Q Angle is large (What's the Q angle?), squeezing knees will be awkward or even cause pain.  So what to do?

Quick anatomy lesson!! Check out the drawing illustration below, taken from the AMAZING "Trail Guide to the Body" (you can purchase it here)!  As you can see, many of the adductors (inner thigh muscles) attach WELL ABOVE the knee, so why just focus on squeezing the knees?     

Our solution?  

Our FAVORITE prop for really feeling and intensifying inner thigh work is the Pilates Small Ball.  It comes with a little straw so you can inflate it yourself, just to the desired level that you wish.  If you don't want to place it as high as, say, where the pectineus and adductor brevis attach (see drawing), then it is also effective to place the ball mid thigh, around where adductor longus attaches to the femur (again, see drawing).  If you don't want to spring for the $8.95 for the small ball, then you can ALWAYS roll up a towel or washcloth and place it between your upper inner thighs when you are doing your workouts.