The butt is part of the hip musculature and when I mention the word “butt” muscles I specifically mean:
- Gluteus maximus
- Gluteus medius
- And last but not least is the Gluteus minimus.
These days many people have weak and underdeveloped butt muscles due to the lack of activity and no stimulus for these particular group of muscles.
Another reason is the other hip muscles (ex., hip flexors) can take over and by time the butt muscles get even weaker and weaker.
Like I mentioned before, this part of the body can be underdeveloped and weak. And I bet you on J. Lo butt that many people fall under the flat and weak butt category, for a major reason and that is we sit on our butts most of the day. Period.
Picture the following life pattern for millions of people day in and day out:
We wake up in the morning and get ready to go to work by sitting on your ass in your car driving to work… You arrive to work and you sit on your desk chair on average of 5-8 hours…You arrive to work and you sit on your desk chair on average of 5-8 hours…You get home tired and guess what is next!? Yes, you watch TV or curl with your favorite book of the week by sitting on your butt in your comfortable cushiony sofa… after all, you had a busy long (sitting) working day and you deserve to relax with the family.But after many days, months, and even years this life pattern unfortunately can be an abuse to your butt muscles and to the whole body for that matter.And no, walking from your office to the water cooler several times to munch on bite size candies will not take care of your problem.In our modern mechanized lives we need to be consciously and purposefully moving around taking the stairwell, go hiking and other similar activities, and exercising for some time to develop these atrophied muscles.
Walking is a great exercise but its motion pattern is limited to stimulate these muscles so you need to do steps in different heights and angles and other manipulative movements to wake up these muscles and let them do their original tasks.
Leg abduction exercise (standing)
Stand hip width apart (or slightly wider) and feet point straight forward
Slowly raise (2-3 seconds) your right straight leg to your right side as high as you can and bring it back ( 2 seconds) to starting position
Your upper body will tilt to opposite direction when you’re performing this exercise and that’s ok. But, don’t lean too much.
Your right foot should not turn outward while you’re raising the right leg sideway
Perform between 8-12 repetitions for 1-2 sets and progressively increase the load of your sets, repetitions, and/or the speed of the movement.
Step-up exercise
You can use a stable and secured elevated object* (chair, box, steps and so forth)
As always, feet straight and hands can be behind the head, around the waist, or to your sides free
Step up with the left leg and life the right knee waist height while you’re standing on the elevated object (the right knee should be at a 90 degree angle.)
Step down with same leg you stepped up with (left leg that is) and repeat this step up exercise with the right leg. You’ll be alternating between the two legs
*The elevated object can be between 8-13 inches. If you’re a novice, I recommend you to start with a lower elevation and gradually use higher elevation so your butt muscles are getting use to this type of exercise.
Standing butt squeeze exercise
Basically you stand with locked out knees and feet pointed straight
• Your hands can be either relaxed extended to your sides or around your waist. Keep your posture good with chest high
• Now, squeeze/ contract the butt muscles (don’t bend your knees or tilt/thrust your pelvis)
The squeeze should last about 2 seconds and then release, that’s it. You can do this butt exercise everyday as supplementary to the other butt exercises.
Another version of butt squeeze exercise is the Kneeling butt squeeze exercise.
Kneeling butt squeeze exercise
• Standing on your knees (kneeling position) hip width apart and hands around your waist…Squeeze your butt muscles
• Don’t thrust your hips forward while you’re performing the exercise
• Don’t slouch your back and keep your shoulder blades together
• Squeeze for about 2 seconds and release Perform two to three sets and repetitions can range from 10 to 30 repetitions and you can perform this exercise everyday because these butt muscles need that stimulus and counteract the lack of motion they go through everyday.
Speed skating exercise
This exercise can be butt muscle firmer and strength endurance ‘sweat dripping’ exercise. You’ll love it or hate, but do it anyway…
• Stand with feet straight and getting ready like the speed skating position…
• Forward positioning of your upper body (bending at your waist)
• Bend the knees and start pushing off the right foot to the left side and then immediately pushing off the left foot to the right side
• Your hands should move naturally (forward) with each side stride you take with your foot
• Every time you land on your foot bend your knee so you absorb the impact that way your butt work very effectively.
You can perform this exercise as part of butt strengthening and/or aerobic workout. Initially start with 5 to 10 skating strides of each side (that’s total of 10 or 20 skating strides).
Or you can time yourself if you have a stop watch for 20 or 30 seconds before you rest and start again for one or two more sets.
Criss-Cross lunge exercise
It’s the same as the regular dynamic lunge exercise except for this following point: you lung across the body
• Stand hip width apart and feet pointing straight
• With the left leg step forward but to the right side of your body* and bend the forward leg (left leg) to a 90 degree angle or more.
• Your back Knee (right knee) can brush off the floor as indication how low you lunge
• Then push-off back with your left foot to the start position, so you have your feet aligned side by side.
• Now, repeat step two but the right leg steps forward instead the left leg.
• Keep your back straight and your hands around your waist
• Talk about 2 seconds to lower yourself
*As you lung body crossing your forward lunging leg; knee cap and foot should be aligned pointing at the same direction
You can start performing 1-2 sets of 6-12 reps, and work your way up to more sets and higher repetitions.
Thank you!
Very helpful Article for body shaping thanks