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The Truth About the Adductor/Abductor Machine

Why the abductor/adductor machine is useless....
The abductor/adductor machines overload the wrong muscles (ie piriformis). Unilateral leg work (split squats, lunges, step-ups, etc) are better choices as are compound movements (full squats, conventional deadlifts, etc).

The simple explanation...
Of the muscles in that area that perform adduction, the adductor machine only hits one. That leaves the other muscles just hanging out and doing essentially nothing to assist in the move. Doesn't seem very efficient, does it? The "fixed line of motion" movement you're doing on the adductor isn't a movement that those muscles are functionally designed to do. Guess what they're designed to do? Move your leg forward and backward. Weird, huh?

If you're overly concerned about those adductor muscles, you'd be better off concentrating on things like lunges. Any kind of single leg work in which the leg moves front and back is going to work those muscles in a more functionally complete way. Bilateral work such as squats and deadlifts are going to be much more effective, also.
 

The sciency explanation....
When you sit (flexing at the hip), you functionally eliminate the ability of two out of the three hip adductors to perform the motion (the adductor magnus and brevis), based on hip angle and biomechanics...this means that you basically aren't using the muscles that you think that you're using.

Biomechanically, the function of the adductors really isn't to adduct the legs in any case: when standing, gravity does that (exceptions might be wrestling or martial arts athletes). The adductors are more functionally loaded during walking, where the adductor magnus works to decelerate hip flexion and the adductor longus works to slow hip extension (think of the importance of this during running especially, where the forces developed are greatly increased through the "gait cycle" or the full pattern of heel strike to heel strike when you walk/run).

 

Also...
Training adduction or abduction alone ignores several key roles of muscles. Very few muscles have only one function, so it's silly to force them into a single plane of motion. When you move in the sagittal plane with free weights, you're stabilizing in the frontal plane, but this isn't present when you're on a machine doing what is "seemingly" the same exercise.

Plop someone down on an abductor machine and you automatically put the gluteus maximus on a mechanical disadvantage (because of the constant degree of hip flexion), so the piriformis has to take up the bulk of the work in lateral rotation and could cause future problems.  (Piriformis is a painful syndrome involving the lower back and hips, but it is better know as "a pain in the butt." It's named after the piriformis muscle, which can create tension in the sciatic nerve, causing pain along with a "heavy leg" feeling.) 

So, what to do...
I wouldn't do the adductor/abductor machine. It's a waste of time that could be better spent doing compound movements like the following.
Full squats
Front squats
Lunges
Step ups
Bulgarian squats
Split squats
Conventional deadlifts
Sumo deadlifits
Romanian deadlifts
Good mornings