The adductor muscles are muscles on the inner thigh that connect to the pelvis, including the pectineus, the adductor magnus, the gracilis, the adductor brevis, and the adductor longus. Their function is to pull the leg in towards the midline of the body, rotate the knee inward, and stabilize the leg. These muscles are frequently overlooked in favor of the quadriceps and hamstrings. 

It seems as though skaters often allow these muscles to stay under-developed, resulting in muscle imbalances that can cause (among other things) knee pain. As I’ve been working to strengthen these muscles and achieve better alignment, I’ve noticed that I’ve been having much less knee pain, which is an added bonus.

Less knee pain these days is especially good because Ari pointed out this week that I’m missing part of my “knee-cycle.” When I transition from one edge to another, I don’t keep bending down into the new edge; instead, I stop and check my balance. This leads to an interrupted edge that goes something like this:

Push (or turn). Start to bend, hold and check my balance, feeling either smug (“what a great edge”) or terrified (“ack, where’s that edge!”). Then bend again.

Today I worked on bending through the entire edge in one continuous motion. Ooooohhhh.

Supposedly the term “Eureka!” (“I have found it!”) was uttered by the famous Greek mathematician and physicist Archimedes when he stepped into his bath and noticed that the water level rose as his body displaced the water.  He was so excited at discovering a precise way to measure the volume of an irregular object that he jumped up out of the bath and ran through the streets naked.

Okay, that’s not going to happen here, but all this is pretty exciting nonetheless.