So you want to firm your butt? For the ladies It goes without saying. But left to their own devices, they often do the wrong exercises. Here’s how you really shape your butt!
This article is inspired by all the female gym members and clients at the gym where I work.
Time after time I go over and talk to them, ask them what their goals are and the majority say they want a ‘better’ bum/bottom/butt/ass – whatever your vernacular.
If they’ve got a big butt they want a small one. If they have no bum they want a rounder one.
4 Key points regarding ‘butt shaping’
- You can’t do exercises to burn the fat off your bum. You can only burn fat – period. So think about your diet and your cardio in general. Once the fatty tissue around your butt is mostly gone, you’ll see muscle i.e. your behind will start to perk up!
- You can’t get a decent shape-lift in your glutes without big, strong exercises. We’ll get to these in a moment.
- You can firm your bottom a little by using step machines, the elliptical and such but pretty soon your ass will just get used to it and stop responding. For real perky roundness, see point 2.
- All the butt-firming exercises in the world won’t help you if your diet isn’t great, let alone merely ok. If it’s crap then forget it sister!
3 Exercises (and videos) to firm your butt!
How do I know these exercises work? Because us Personal Trainers like to work out a lot. We know the best exercises (well, most of us do!).
And if there’s one thing we know, it’s which exercises hurt us the most in the days following our workout.
Even as I type this, my glutes are sore from my last workout! With that cheeky thought in mind, let’s get these exercises down so you too can firm your butt!
Exercise number 1 – The Squat
The squat is the king of leg work. In fact, some say it’s the best exercise full stop.
They are a little macho and the squat rack is always at the ‘guy’ end of the gym. Fair enough, it’s hard for a lady to go over there. But trust me, avoid these at your bum’s peril! After 3 sets of these you’ll feel it for days after.
Exercise number 2 – The Deadlift
This exercise also targets the glutes and thighs but also hits various back muscles giving almost your whole body a workout.
This is important because when we put our body under such stress the physiological effects are highly significant in regards to muscle firming/growing and fat burning.
After these large, compound-movement workouts, our bodies will continue to burn much more calories than after low intensity cardio or high intensity interval training.
Here’s an article on that aspect of heavier training.
This is quite a good video for deadlifting basics:
Exercise number 3 – The Bulgarian Split Squat
This video shows the split squat without weight. I suggest that once you get comfortable doing the movement, that you hold a weight in each hand.
You should feel the tension on the gluteal muscle, one side at a time, on the side of the front leg. This feeling will be more noticeable as your increase the weight in your hands. Then you’ll really start to firm your butt!
Few final notes on how to firm your butt
You’ll notice that all of these exercises involve a bent leg position and a straightening under tension. So the glute lengthens (bottom of a squat or seated position) and shortens (when we stand with erect posture).
We need to do this with increasing weight load each week, more or less.
Much of the reason ladies don’t work these muscles correctly is because they do body weight exercises only. You guys need to load some weight on, little by little obviously, but keep increasing or your body won’t be challenged and won’t change.
One final note. To get these kinds of lifts done properly, it is advised that you consult a Personal Trainer where possible. Just to give you the best chance of doing it properly and saving you some time. Even if you just book a couple of one hour sessions to go over the correct technique.
Here’s wishing you all a firm behind!
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