Booty Blast
Many of us have been resorting to at-home workouts during COVID-19, and the good news is that there are literally hundreds of exercises that you can do from home with little to no equipment.
The best program for strengthening and sculpting any area is to incorporate a variety of exercises that challenge the muscles in a variety of ways. In addition, you’ll need to regularly advance and modify these exercises every 4-8 weeks to ensure regular progress. That’s where the help of a trainer or coach can assist you as you advance your program.
Today we’ll focus on your Booty, also known as your glutes, butt, or hips. Regardless of whether your motives are aesthetic or functional for your butt, we can all agree that strong hips are important and will add to your health. Strong Hips = Strong Knees and will help the integrity of your joints and connective tissue and ultimately, will enhance your running, climbing, jumping, skiing and more.
Lunges and step ups are great choices because they challenge all the major muscle groups in the lower body and with specific variations, they can really target the glutes.
Here are the specific technique tips for 4 of my favorite glute exercises:
*Complete 1 set of 8-20 reps with a 1-minute rest or core conditioning exercise in between each exercise. Complete two times per week on non-consecutive days and build to 2-3 sets of each exercise.*
Lunge & Lift:
Start with one leg positioned forward and the other behind.
Keep the front knee over top of the ankle or forefoot. Keep the back knee underneath or slightly behind your hips.
Slowly lower the back knee towards the ground keeping the front knee over top the ankle/foot the entire time. Only lower as low as you feel comfortable while reaching your hands forward and towards the ground.
Keep your body weight positioned over the front leg – this is your working leg.
Return to the starting position and lift the back foot off the floor.
Maintain proper posture, keep your abdominals contracted and squeeze your glutes as you lift your foot off the floor.
Complete 8-20 reps to fatigue for each leg. Hold hand weights to advance this exercise.
Step Up:
Position yourself in front of a bench with one foot on the bench.
Chose a height that challenges you without straining to complete. Ideally, you can advance to where the bench height is positioned so that your knee is at about 90 degrees.
Keep your kneecap facing forward and your weight distributed on all four corners of your foot.
Now slowly step up extending the supporting knee into a fully upright, balanced position.
Now slowly lower yourself down to the starting position.
Perform one set of 8-20 reps slow and then an additional 10 fast reps for each leg.
Keep the height shorter if this bothers your knees at all. Hold hand weights to advance this exercise.
1 Leg Squat:
Stand on one leg with the other foot resting crossed on the other thigh.
Slowly sink back and drop into a one-leg squat.
Only go as low as you feel comfortable, keep your knee cap pointed forward in the same direction of your foot and remember to contract your glutes as you lift and lower.
Complete 8-20 reps each leg.
Bridging:
Lay on your back with your legs bent and your feet positioned on the floor.
With your arms at your side, slowly lift your hips and buttocks up towards the ceiling while contracting your glutes (buttocks) until your body weight is resting comfortably on your shoulder blades.
Throughout the entire exercise, be sure to keep your hips square to the ceiling and your abdominals contracted.
Slowly lift up and down 8-20x contacting your glutes as you lift and lower.
As you develop strength in your legs, you can do this exercise on just one leg – just be sure not to tilt to one side while doing these 1-leg lifts.
Yours in health & fitness,
Sherri McMillan
Note: As an avid Columbian reader, you can redeem a complimentary initial in person or virtual personal training appointment to help get you started. Email us for more details.
We Are Open!
Northwest Personal Training is NOW OPEN! We are SO EXCITED to see you! For Private Training, you’ll have the option to continue doing virtual training, outdoor training or training at the studio. For Group Fitness classes, you will be able to continue doing virtual online classes (live or saved) and we are also going to host some outdoor programming.
We specific safety precautions that we have in place so please watch this video where I explain everything we are doing to keep you safe.
Here is a link to our Reopening Protocol in detail so you can review closely.
#NWPTSTRONG
Sherri McMillan
Sherri McMillan, holds a master's degree in exercise physiology and has been inspiring the world to adopt a fitness lifestyle for more than 33 years. She has received numerous industry awards including 2010 CanFitPro International Presenter of the Year, 2006 IDEA Fitness Director of the Year, 1998 IDEA Personal Trainer of the Year, 1998 CanFitPro Fitness Presenter of the Year and 2005/2006 ACE Fitness Educator of the Year - Runner up. She is a fitness trainer, fitness columnist for various magazines and newspapers, author of five books and manuals including "Go For Fit - the Winning Way to Fat Loss" and "Fit over Forty" and the featured presenter in various fitness DVDs. She has presented hundreds of workshops to thousands of fitness leaders throughout Canada, Australia, Mexico, Jamaica, New Zealand, Germany, England, Spain, South America, Asia and the U.S. She is the owner of Northwest Personal Training in downtown Vancouver, the founder of WHY Racing Events & WHY Community, participates in various community fundraisers and can be found running, biking, or hiking around the community. Find more information at nwpersonaltraining.com.