6 Tips to Tone Your Butt

Dreaming of a bubblier behind? Then there are two key strategies you need to follow: losing weight and using exercises that effectively work your glutes. With these in mind, here are the FizzUp trainer’s top six tips to tone your butt.

A QUICK ANATOMY LESSON

When you take a closer look at your derriere, the only muscle you see is your gluteus maximus. This is the largest glute muscle. Two other muscles called the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus make up the rest and are located under the gluteus maximus. Together, they form the gluteal muscles, or the glutes. These are the main functions of each one:

  • Gluteus maximus: It extends your hips and rotates your thighs outward.
  • Gluteus medius and gluteus minimus: They abduct* your thighs.

(*To move your thighs away from the centerline of your body)

These muscles also play other minor roles, such as stabilizing your pelvis and working as hip flexors), but these don’t matter as much when it comes to toning your butt.

TIP #1 TO TONE YOUR BUTT: LOSE WEIGHT

If you want to tone your butt, you have to start by burning the layer of fat stored around your legs. This will give you a clean slate for building muscle with the help of your workout program.

You can’t target your weight loss, but when you do start to lose weight throughout your body, one of the first places you’ll notice it is in your legs. This is one area where women tend to store the most fat. You can build muscle to help you reach your fitness goal as you burn fat by following a personalized workout program.

Think of your body as a statue you’re trying to sculpt. The first thing to do is to remove the extra clay and form the parts of your body that you want to form. Weight loss is mostly made possible when you change your diet using the right nutrition plan for you and one you can stick with. FizzUp’s nutrition coaching* is the perfect solution. It includes over 150 recipe tips, tricks and recipe videos to guide you all through your weight loss. We’ll even bring you meal plans that are designed with your fitness goal in mind.

TIP #2 TO TONE YOUR BUTT: DO EXERCISES THAT TARGET YOUR GLUTES

Many exercises you can use to tone your butt also work to stimulate your quads and hamstrings, which are other muscles in your legs. One of the most popular exercises for building your glute muscles is the squat, but it also engages all the other muscles in your legs. If you can’t feel your glutes working during this exercise, then you’ll need to do it less often or use a variation if you’re dead set on building a bigger booty.

To put it simply, any exercise that requires a knee extension or flexion mainly works your quads and hamstrings, not your glutes. To target your glutes, use exercises that extend your hips and/or abduct your legs.

Instead of trying to find the miracle exercise to tone your butt, we recommend working all your glute muscles using a variety of exercises that put their main functions to work. Here are a few examples:

  • Glute bridges can be used for hip extensions. You can do them with one or both legs using just your body weight or with equipment such as an exercise band, dumbbell, kettlebell, barbell or with one or both legs. The possibilities are endless!
  • Kickbacks also work to extend your hips. This exercise targets your gluteus maximus. Try them with or without equipment to relieve back pain.
  • The kettlebell swing also involves hip extensions. With this exercise, you’ll lift a fairly heavy load and put your glutes to the test when you widen your stance.
  • Exercises that rotate your hips outward or abduct your legs, such as lying side leg raises are an effective way to tone your butt. Give them a go without any equipment or with an exercise band. They’re perfect for working your gluteus minimus and gluteus medius as you learn to keep your glutes engaged.tone your butt 03
  • Reverse lunges trigger the main function in your gluteus maximus. If you want to work this muscle even more, the FizzUp trainer suggests taking a bigger step back.
  • The goblet squat is an exercise specially designed to build your glutes by positioning your feet farther apart. Use it to extend your hips as you use added weight to turn up the effectiveness of this exercise.

TIP #3 TO TONE YOUR BUTT: FEEL YOUR MUSCLES WORKING!

You could be using the best technique in the world, but if you don’t feel the targeted muscles working, then you can’t expect optimal development. The first thing you need to do is contract a specific muscle group as much as you can without moving it.

In order to build muscle, you need to feel the muscle group working and not just move your body from A to B. To forge a strong “mind-muscle connection,” you don’t need to count your repetitions or increase the weight you’re lifting. The most important thing is to really contract your glutes using easy exercises like glute bridges.

  • Try to contract your glutes at different times throughout the day or at the end of every repetition you do for a few seconds to feel your glutes working and make this connection.
  • You can also vary the speed of your repetitions.

TIP #4 TO TONE YOUR BUTT: MAKE YOUR GLUTES YOUR TOP PRIORITY

Underworked glutes is an all-too-common problem. If you’re still not getting any results, start paying even more attention to this muscle group by spending ⅔ of your lower body workout on your glutes. FizzUp’s Glutes Focus* makes an excellent supplement to your regular workout by specifically strengthening this area of your body. You can do it on your rest day or before or after your workout. The choice is up to you. It’s easy to fit this five-minute mini-workout into your busy schedule.

And don’t forget that you can also tone your butt with our Challenges* that change every 15 days to add even more fun to your fitness training experience!

TIP #5 TO TONE YOUR BUTT: TRY UNILATERAL STRENGTH TRAINING

With unilateral strength training, you only work one limb at a time. It has been proven to be an extremely effective way to strengthen underworked areas of your body or focus your efforts on specific muscles.

  • Your “mind-muscle connection” is a lot stronger with unilateral exercises. It’s easier to concentrate on pushing your heels into the ground and working your glutes while doing squats, for instance.
  • You put a heavier load on your leg just by focusing on it with your mind, upping the intensity to build even more muscle mass. For instance, you can do glute bridges with one leg in the air and the other on the floor for better balance.
  • This training style also works to treat muscle imbalances because the weight you lift is evenly distributed and each limb puts in the same amount of work.

TIP #6 TO TONE YOUR BUTT: TURN UP THE INTENSITY

Your glutes make up the strongest muscle group in the human body… so strong in fact, that it takes a high level of intensity to work them. This means that in order to make them stronger, you need to add weight, start doing more challenging exercises or more and more repetitions as time goes on.

This is the kind of strategy that will really take your glute development to the next level. As long as you’re following the number of sets and repetitions given to you from the FizzUp trainer in your workout program, all you have to do is concentrate on the effort you put into them.

Dedication to your workout is key if you want the glutes of a goddess, but don’t forget to eat the right diet to keep you on the right track to your goal. With FizzUp PRO, you’ll get the best of both worlds with a personalized fitness program and nutrition coaching to make the changes you want in your body.

*FizzUp PRO feature

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