When working out, it's common to focus your efforts on areas of the body that seem especially saggy. However, the inner thighs can be a rather troublesome spot, since many exercises don't target these muscles. If you are overweight, loose skin may form in this area, causing your legs to appear anything but svelte. Specific exercises can aid you in your efforts toward tighter thigh skin, but might not remedy the situation completely.

Identification

Loose skin on the inner thighs is easy to identify. It appears as droopy patches of skin that hang down from the muscle without tension or tone. The skin may look wrinkly or have cellulite. If you have recently lost a significant amount of weight, the loose skin may be even more pronounced.

Causes of Loose Skin

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Before you can even think about using exercise to tighten up the loose skin on your thighs, you need to understand why it showed up in the first place. Being overweight or obese is a primary cause of extra skin. As your weight increases, your skin expands to include the added fat. While losing weight is a step in the right direction to remedying this problem, the more weight that you lose, the more excess skin you'll have, according to the National Institutes of Health 12. The skin on your thighs will loosen and sag if you aren't very physically active, and sagging skin is a visible part of the aging process.

Exercise Options

You can tighten up loose thigh skin with exercise, though it requires doing the right exercises to get the results you want. Running can help tone your thighs, burn calories and encourage weight loss. Standing leg lifts with a turned-out foot crossing in front of the body, standing side lunges and squats are also effective at toning the underlying muscles of your inner thighs. Pilates exercises such as the side split on a reformer will also work your inside thighs, according to the IDEA Health and Fitness Association 3.

Exercise Limitations

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Though exercise is beneficial in toning and tightening loose inner thigh skin, it's not a cure. In some cases, exercise just won't achieve the results you want. For instance, if you recently underwent weight loss surgery and dropped several pounds very quickly, the skin likely became loose just as quickly. This sort of shock to the skin can't be entirely remedied with exercise. Likewise, if you have lived a rather sedentary lifestyle and the skin has been loose for quite some time, it probably won't shrink very quickly with exercise alone.

Considerations

If you've been sedentary, consult with your doctor before beginning any exercise program. You're doctor can help you determine the type of exercise that is best for you.