Strong thighs are fundamental to maintaining smooth, everyday movement.
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The outer thighs play a pivotal yet often overlooked role in our daily mobility. These muscles are critical for stabilizing the hips, offering knee support, and maintaining a level pelvis, which makes walking, running, and stair climbing more seamless. Enhancing the strength of your outer thighs not only bolsters these functions but also significantly decreases the risk of injury.
That being said, toning and fortifying your outer thighs can be a daunting task. But fear not, as we are here to guide you! We consulted with Domenic Angelino, MS, MPH, CSCS, CPT, Chief Exercise Scientist at FitCraft. He offers insight into four standing exercises that can be seamlessly integrated into your fitness routine for tangible improvements.
Standing Hip Abductions
“The key is to maintain a rigid and straight torso while lifting one leg laterally,” advises Angelino. “This technique focuses directly on training the hip abductor muscles, such as the gluteus medius and tensor fascia latae. This exercise is versatile enough to be performed with just body weight, or with added resistance from cables or bands. For added safety and stability, you can perform this standing next to a wall.”
- Begin by standing tall with your feet hip-width apart and hands on your hips.
- Activate your core and shift your weight onto your left leg.
- Keep your right leg straight and toes pointed forward as you lift it out to the side as high as you’re comfortably able to.
- Hold at the top for a moment before lowering for 3 seconds.
- Repeat on the other side.
Lateral Lunges
Lateral lunges activate the vastus lateralis (the outer-side part of the front thigh) and the gluteus medius.
“This exercise is particularly helpful for training the outer thighs because it allows you to work in a very deep range of motion, essentially going as far as your mobility allows you to lunge down, and doing so with weight,” Angelino says. “When you press off the ground with your foot to stand back up, you’ll be engaging outer thigh muscles that work at your knee joint, and outer butt muscles that work at your hip joint.”
- Stand tall with your feet hip-width apart.
- Take a big step out to the side with your left foot, press your hips back, and lower into a lateral lunge.
- Press through your left heel to rise back up.
- Repeat on the other side.
Side Step-Ups
This exercise engages similar hip abductor muscles as the lateral lunge.
“It is also highly effective at improving iliotibial band strength. It’s another part of your outer thigh that is responsible for stabilization. It can’t be trained directly in a meaningful way in the same way that other muscles can, but it improves when it is forced to stabilize your legs during certain types of movements. Laterally stepping up and off of a box or raised platform will increase its activation and role in stabilization, compared to other exercises,” Angelino adds.
- Begin standing sideways next to a sturdy step or plyometric box.
- Place the foot closest to the step firmly on top of the surface.
- Activate your core and maintain a tall chest.
- Press through the heel of the foot on the step to lift your body up until both legs are straight.
- Use control to lower.
- Repeat on the other side.
Sumo Squats
The sumo squat trains many muscles outside the outer hip, helping you produce greater force with each rep and utilize more weight.
“Using more weight means you’ll be able to provide a stronger stimulus to your muscles and improve faster,” Angelino says. “The sumo squat’s wide stance, with your feet very far apart, is what makes it better at targeting the outer thigh muscles than a normal squat.”
- Stand tall with your feet outside shoulder-width, toes slightly pointing outward.
- Extend your arms ahead of you, place your hands on your hips, or hold a dumbbell or kettlebell with both hands.
- Bend at the knees and hips to lower into a squat.
- Descend until your thighs are parallel to the floor.
- Press through your heels to return to standing.