Working Out for a Better Butt

As the holidays draw near, you might be starting to worry about how you’re going to look in your holiday attire, especially if you work at an office with a somewhat formal holiday party. An area that many people focus on is their butt: how to make it perfect. Building the perfect butt requires exercise, such as total body workouts, but eating properly is also an important factor.

The buttocks consist of both muscle tissue and fat. We are all built differently: some of us have small amounts of fat while some of us have more. It’s the fat that causes problems for most people. Muscle tissue grows symmetrically around bones and cartilage, while fat can and often grows in many different directions. No matter how much exercise you do to build a strong butt (glutes), if you are not eating properly and the fat on your body naturally gets distributed to your butt, you may never get that “perfect butt” you are hoping for.

To build and keep a better butt, you must focus on proper diet, weight training, and frequent cardiovascular exercise.

Proper Diet

• Fruits and vegetables – Eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables is important, especially ones that are packed with essential vitamins and minerals needed to promote good health. Make sure that you eat a wide variety of vegetables and fruits that are bright in color. But limit the amount of fruits that you eat because of the relatively high sugar content. Some sugar is needed by the body, but too much promotes weight gain.
• Whole grains – Whole grains provide protein, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytochemicals. They also help to lower cholesterol, aid in digestion, regulate blood sugar, and make you feel full faster, among many other things. Just be sure to stay away from refined grain products. They are essentially empty calories and promote weight gain.
• High Protein Foods – Our bodies need protein just as much as they do vitamins and minerals, and it’s important to get them in adequate quantities. It especially holds true for those of us who are physically active. Beans, chicken, tofu, eggs, pork, and fish are some of the healthier choices people make when choosing protein-rich foods. There are many other sources of protein, but be careful to choose ones that are low in bad fats and high in good ones.
• Dairy Products – Dairy products contain potassium, vitamin D, calcium, and protein that are important to health. If you are not allergic to dairy, low-fat dairy products should be consumed instead of high fat ones. Some of the most advantageous dairy products contain probiotics which have been found to promote stronger immune and digestive systems.

Weight Training

There are many weight training exercises that focus on building and tightening glute muscles. Exercises that build leg and back muscles tend to also build the glutes. Just keep in mind that when you make muscles stronger, they also tend to get bigger. Remember, as you build your glute muscles if you don’t also lose buttocks fat, your butt will get bigger.

Some of the more common glute exercises include:

• Squats – Bending at the knees, with chest slightly forward, while balancing your body. This exercise engages not only the calf, thigh and back muscle but also the glutes.
• Lunges – This exercise does a great job of training many of the same muscle groups as the squats, but it works them in a different way, strengthening your lower body overall.
• Hamstring and Leg Curls – In addition to making the upper legs, lower legs, and lower back stronger, it builds muscle in the glutes as well.

Cardio and Total Body Workouts

Although building strong glutes can be obtained through weight training, many people don’t want large glute muscles. Instead, they prefer the relatively small and tight buns they can get from a total body workout. The added benefit of a total body workout is that it is a cardio workout that strengthens not only the body muscles but also the heart.

Yes it is possible to build a better butt with a total body workout.  When you exercise your lower body, you invariably exercise your glute muscles. Any aerobic exercise that engages the glute muscles will help you to burn calories, increase muscle strength and volume, and help you to lose weight.

Some of the most common cardio exercises include:

• Swimming
• Cycling
• Martial Arts
• Running
• Stair Climbing

There is no doubt about the health benefits of swimming, cycling, martial arts, running, and stair climbing. Swimming, cycling, and running are great exercises. However, they have the disadvantage of not engaging all of the major muscle groups. Martial arts and stair climbing both engage all of the major muscle groups, but martial arts doesn’t engage all of the muscles at the same time nor does it increase the heart rate like stair climbing. Stair Climbing exercises, on a machine such as the Versaclimber, engage all muscle groups at the same time, providing a faster and better workout.

Building a strong body requires great effort and determination. Whether you decide to build larger muscular glutes or a slimmer, toner one, you need to eat the types of foods that will allow you to lose the extra fat that covers those muscles. Either way, a total body workout can be obtained through frequent exercises that engage all muscle groups at the same time, and raise the heart rate to a point where you can burn calories quickly. The Versaclimber doesn’t take much time out of your busy schedule and can help you get that perfect booty. Visit a Rise Nation studio near you, where not only will you have access to climbing machines, but also to motivating instructors who will continue to push you toward your best!