As a fitness coach, I’m constantly asked, “What exercises are best exercises for the “Butt?”. One of the most common areas of concerns is the lower body, specifically the hip, butt and thighs. Today I’m going to share one of my favorite lower body exercise and the multiple variations that come with it. It’s called the Rear-Foot Elevated Lunge Variation/Bulgarian Split Squat. This exercise is so effective that you’ll pretty much reshape your legs with this move and make you legs thunder-thigh proof when you master it!
Before I get into the movement, I don’t want you to be confused that spot reduction or individual body part training on certain areas of the body is what you should be doing. I am a fervent believer in total body workouts, meaning that we train the upper body, lower body, and core during every single workout. You want better abs, Total Body Train, better legs, total body train, better arms total body train. When you train the whole body at once you maximize and stimulate lean muscle gain, your metabolism and help promote total body fat burning. in order to eliminate the body fat that covers the areas that people are having trouble seeing; the stubborn fat areas that prevent a good body from becoming a great body, you need to focus on Total Body Movements. Plus, a diet high in lean protein, fiber, and green veggies and low in fats and refined sugars and starches is of course a must if you want to see muscle be sexy and ripple. It is also important to know that you lose fat in a genetically predetermined way. You can do endless amount of crunches, but without total body training, proper eating habits, and enough time to get to those stubborn fat areas you will never get rid of your gut, stop the arms from jiggling, reduce those hips and thighs or trim and shape the rear.
Now that we cleared that up: back to the ultimate butt exercise. My favorite leg exercises are lunge variations. I prefer single leg exercise in lieu of their double leg counterparts for many reasons. For people with back issues, single leg exercises allow them to safely perform lower body exercises without putting the lower lumbar spine in jeopardy of hyper flexion or excessive rounding that can lead to back spasms in the short run and herniated discs in the long run. Also, I feel there’s often times a strength and/or flexibility imbalance between both legs for most people. Therefore, it’s critical to address one leg at a time to really fire up the weak links from the start.
I prefer a lunge variation called The Rear Foot Elevated Lunge. So basically you elevate the back foot on a chair, bench, box, or any other sturdy foot support, usually about 12-18 inches high for the advanced you may choose unstable surfaces like a stability ball. Put your front leg well in front of you in order to make sure that your front knee and ankle are in alignment. In general, I often tell people to exaggerate how far you can put your front leg forward so that the front knee is almost slightly behind the ankle. This really helps reduce sheer force on the knees. Initiate the exercise, by loading the front heel and sinking your hips as low as you can in a pain-free range of motion. Maintain a really tall posture with a proud chest and shoulders down and back. Finish the rep by explosively driving through your front heel to return to the top of the movement. You can start with body weight only in search of front thigh parallel to the floor or lower depth and then progress by adding speed to the movement or by using dumbbells. You can even incorporate some very cool combination movements with this lower body exercise like adding a curl to press at the top of the movement or even by raising dumbbells overhead to really challenge your core and single-leg balance and stability.
See the video below for a complete demo of all of the different variations of the rear-foot elevated lunge:
I have yet to find an exercise that hits the butt as hard as this one does. In particular, it really helps strengthen your vastus medialis muscle, that inner quad muscle that looks like a teardrop, that’s heavily responsible for tracking your patella and keeping your kneecaps in line. So if you have a history of overtraining or patella-femoral issues this exercise is phenomenal for keeping your knees as bulletproof as possible.
Lastly, this movement provides a very good stretch for the hip flexor of your back leg, an area that is often very tight, especially for those who are seated for long periods. Any exercise that allows you to simultaneously stretch and strengthen your body is a must have. Don’t waste another moment with the useless adductor machine (You know the machine that has the legs go in and out a.k.a. the sex machine) and get off your butt and start doing the Ultimate Butt exercise right now!
