Squat For Booty? Part 3...

We have now learned about the anatomy of our hips, and also why a 30 day squat challenge isn’t necessarily the best thing since sliced bread for our booties. Let’s learn about exercises that will definitely help our entire lower body – old and new exercises alike! Let’s get to the fun stuff!!

THE SQUAT!
Yes – I’m including the squat! Why? Because despite the fact that it doesn’t engage your glutes a massive amount, it’s still a good exercise. We want balance, so that means using a variety of exercises.

How to do it:

• Stand with feet shoulder width apart.
• Bring your shoulders down and back, and pull your belly button gently towards your spine so you’re not slouching
• Pop your butt backwards and bend your knees like you’re sitting on a chair, keeping your chest upright. Keep your knees in line with your toes – they shouldn’t dip inwards towards each other.
• Squeeze your butt muscles, use your legs and stand up straight (make sure you properly extend your hips too, if you’re still a little bit bent at the hips you’re not standing up properly)
  
• Repeat!
  

THE DEADLIFT!
I love deadlifts!! People say that deadlifts are dangerous and can cause injury, but in reality if your ego gets in the way of any exercise, or if you just don’t perform it properly, of course anything can be dangerous and cause injury! That is common sense.
The action we want to perform is a hinging movement. Think about a hinge on a door. Both ends stay straight while the bit in the middle does the bending. This is the same for your body: your back and legs stay in the same position while your hip joint does the "bending".

How to do it:

• Keep your upper body (think: hips allll the way up to your skull) must be in a straight line all the time. Shoulders down and back, belly button to spine, head neutral.
• Keep your shins vertical the whole time. How do you do this? Send your butt and bodyweight backwards. This keeps your centre of gravity in the right place and your shins stay vertical If your shins go forward, you’re doing a squat. If your shins go backwards… I don’t know what you’re doing, but it ain’t a deadlift.
• As you send your butt and bodyweight backwards and perform the hinge action, you will go from looking forward, to looking at the floor. Inhale as you hinge down.
• Once you’re hinged and looking down, squeeze your glutes and hamstrings (the muscles at the back of your thighs) and stand up nice and straight. I call this “lifting with your butt”. Exhale as you stand up.
• Keep your shoulders down & back, and your core pulled in, especially as you stand up straight. If you arch your back you loose your core connection and risk lower back pain or problems. A good tip I learned from someone who’s a bit of a pro at deadlifting*, as you stand up “hump the bar”. I’m not going to apologise if that sounds dodgy, because that is exactly how you get really good glute activation at the top of the movement and prevent arching your back when you stand up. #humpthebar
• Repeat!

Another helpful hint when it comes to deadlifting – don’t go past your current level of flexibility. If you can’t get the weight lower than your knees (or any other part of your legs) without rounding your back, don’t go any lower. Work within your current flexibility, it will improve over time if you’re stretching. You don’t want to risk injuring yourself because you wanted to go lower and be more impressive than the person next to you.

THE LUNGE!
Lunges and other single leg exercises are awesome! Great for balance (as in, standing-on-one-foot-without-wobbling balance, and also strength balance between your left and right sides), but also co-ordination too! Nobody wants to live life feeling like a Gumpy Gilbert, right? Your training will not be complete without working your body in different stances and foot positions, so don’t leave these ones out!
Lunges are awesome because they can be used in different directions to hit all the different muscles within your lower body. Because we want to train smart and keep our body challenged, we will cover all of these lunge variations in our training sessions.

How to do it:

• Stand up tall, imagine that your feet are on train tracks as you take a nice long stride backwards, keeping your big toe facing forward and your weight evenly distributed throughout your front foot. If you keep your stance too narrow (almost like you’re on a balance beam), you will wobble too much and won’t get the best muscle engagement.
• Lower into the lunge. Make sure the knee on your front leg does not go past your toes. This will protect your knee from injury. If you have small feet and can’t help but go past your toes, make sure you can feel your body weight evenly throughout your foot. If your front heel doesn’t stay on the ground as you lower down, take a longer step forwards or backwards.
• Ideally, go right to the floor, with the back knee briefly touching the ground. If you aren’t strong enough to touch the floor with your knee, just go down as far as you are able. Push with your legs and rise out of the lunge. Bring your feet together and stand tall before doing your next lunge. You can alternate legs, or do one side at a time.
• Keep your core engaged, belly button pulled towards your spine to prevent your back from arching.

GLUTE BRIDGES!
Glute bridges are the most basic form of the best glute exercise I have ever done. Glute bridges (and other similar exercises) are awesome because they make your muscles work when the muscle fibres are at their shortest – which is actually when your glutes work their best. All of these other exercises we have gone over are working the muscles when the fibres are extended or elongated. For efficiency’s sake, it makes sense to include both kinds of these exercises to get the best results, right?

How to do it:

• Lay on a mat on the floor, with your knees bent, heels close to your butt.
• Pull your belly button towards your spine, tuck your tailbone up, push through your heels and squeeze your butt so it lifts off the floor. Keep your knees in line with your hips and toes.
• ONLY go as high as your glutes will contract. Hold briefly.
• Lower back down to the floor.
• Repeat!

It is super important that you only raise your hips off the ground as far as they will naturally go. And by that I mean, don’t squeeze, raise your hips, and then think to yourself that you need to go higher, and arch your back to do so. If you arch your back, you release your core which is a recipe for a back injury (mild or major). Keep your core engaged and the curve in your spine neutral, and you can be sure you are focusing on your glutes only.
 
So there you have it – four exercises that will work much better than only one! If you want to maximise your results, contact me here!

* Tony Gentilcore said that.