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Practice These 10 Moves to Tone Your Butt

Butt workouts are so popular, and there are a lot of good reasons to strengthen your glutes.

Your gluteal muscles fortify the low back to reduce and prevent back pain. Strong glutes increase your athletic performance, help improve good posture, and support you in daily activities like walking, climbing stairs, and picking things up.

If you want butt workouts to strengthen and tone your finer assets, we’ve got your back (or should we say, butt?!).
 
 

Here’s a 16-Minute Butt Toning Yoga Class

 

 
 

Quick Anatomy Lesson! There Are 3 Main Gluteus Muscles:

A quick review of the muscles in your backside will help you better understand which muscle you’re activating in the following butt workouts:

Gluteus maximus: the main booty muscle
Gluteus medius: side booty
Gluteus minimus: responsible for the booty ‘lift’
 

 
 

Ready to Tone Your Booty With These 10 Butt Workouts?

The following butt workouts target each gluteus muscle and are listed from easiest to more challenging. Remember that you can increase or decrease the amount of reps and modify or add-on as needed.
 

1. Bridge Pose Lifts

A classic Bridge Pose works the glutes, but adding the up and down lifts will boost the strengthening and toning effect.
 

 
Here’s how: Start on your back with your feet planted and close enough to your seat so you can touch your heels. Press into your feet to lift your hips. Keep your glutes engaged as you lift and lower. Repeat 10-15 times.
 
Bonus challenge: Raise one leg for the leg lifts and alternate every 5-10 reps.
 
Looking for more yoga tutorials and yoga tips? Check out our full library of Yoga articles here
 

2. Table Top Cross Taps

This is a low impact exercise with big results! The combination of lifting and crossing the extended leg targets all parts of the gluteal muscles.
 

 
Here’s how: Start in Table Top position and extend your right leg long. On an inhale, lift it up, and on an exhale cross and tap behind your opposite ankle. Inhale lift it up, and exhale to tap the foot hip-level. Repeat this combination 10 times on each side.

Bonus challenge: Add small pulses to both sides: when you tap the foot hip-level, pulse it up/down before lifting it back up behind you. When you cross the leg behind the opposite ankle, pulse it up/down before coming back to center.
 

 
 

3. Side Glute Lift

Don’t forget to give your side booty some love! When the side booty, or gluteus medius is strong, your booty looks full and perky.
 

 
Here’s how: Start in a side plank position and drop your bottom knee to the mat or ground. Keeping your bottom hand planted, bring top hand to top hip. Keeping your extended leg active, begin to lift and lower at your own pace. Repeat for 10-15 lifts on each side.

Bonus challenge: At the end of your reps, keep the top leg lifted and draw little circles with your pointed toes. Try to do this for a minimum of 10 seconds on each side.
 

4. Basic Squat

A basic squat is one of the most effective ways to strengthen, tone, and lift your booty!
 

 
 
Here’s how: Bring your feet wider than hip-distance apart and keep your toes facing forward. As you bend into your knees, shift the weight into your heels as you squat, and keep the glutes engaged as you lift back to standing. Repeat 10-15 times.
 
Bonus challenge: Hold each squat at the bottom and lift one heel up, then pulse down and up five times before switching sides (as depicted in the giph).
 

5. Side Squat

Side squats are another great way to tone the glutes and work more into the side booty too.
 

 
Here’s how: From standing, step your right foot out approximately four feet as you lower into a squat. Step your right foot back to center as you come to standing, and then repeat on the left side. One squat right to left is one rep – repeat for a total of 10 reps.

Bonus challenge: Add a pulse on each side. When you squat to the right, hold and pulse a few inches up and down for a count of five, and then repeat on the left side.
 

6. Leg Extensions

Leg extensions work the gluteus minimus, or that under part of your booty that’s responsible for the lift.
 

 
Here’s how: From a standing position, keep one foot planted as you extend the opposite leg behind you (option to hold something or use a chair for balance). Lift and lower the extended leg, but keep the movement small (several inches is all you need). Repeat 10-15 times per side.
 
Bonus challenge: Keep the extended leg lifted on your final rep and pulse for five extra breaths on each side.
 

7. Locust Pose Lift

This supine pose strengthens spine and glutes and is also helps ease back pain and prevent future injury.
 

 
Here’s how: Begin on your stomach and reach your arms forward. Exhale all your breath out, and with an inhale, lift arms and legs off the ground. Flow with your breath: inhale to rise, exhale to lower. Repeat 10 times.

Bonus challenge: After your final rep, lift and hold at the top for five breath counts. If you want to increase the challenge, pulse your hands and feet up and down as you hold.

How to Use a Foam Roller to Relieve Low Back Pain (Video)
 

8. Goddess Pulses

Goddess Pose strengthens and tones the glutes, and adding pulsing movement amplifies the effect.
 

 
Here’s how: From standing, take a four-foot wide stance and bring your heels in, toes out as you lower into a Goddess squat position. Press your knees outward and begin to lift and lower several inches. Repeat for 30 seconds.

Bonus challenge: Try this same exercise with one or both heels lifted for an added strengthening and balance challenge.
 

9. Chair Pistol Squats

Pistol squats are super challenging but also super strengthening for the legs and glutes! The chair variation gives you the same benefit but with less impact on the knees and more focus on the glutes.
 

 
Here’s how: Start seated in a chair with right foot planted. Engage your glutes and rise to standing on your opposite leg, then keep the glutes active and bend the right knee to sit back down.

Bonus challenge: Ditch the chair and try a few reps without it. Ready to turn up the volume even more? Then take this all the way into traditional pistol squats by lowering all the way until your booty touches your heel.
 

10. Animal Walk

This fun and different form of movement strengthens all gluteal muscles and also tones the core and inner thighs.
 

 
Here’s how: Begin in a table top position and tuck your toes. Lift your shins so they’ll parallel with the mat or floor beneath you. Engage your glutes and begin to walk forward on your hands and balls of the feet, keeping the shins hovering off the ground. Do this for 30 seconds.

Bonus challenge: Take your animal walk to the next level by walking ten steps forward and ten steps backward. Challenge yourself to repeat this five times through.
 
 

Strengthen and Tone Your Booty With These Butt Workouts

These butt workouts will strengthen and tone your booty in no time. You can practice them on a regular basis, but it’s also good to keep variety in your workout routine.

Did you know that there are also yoga poses for your glutes? You can Do These 5 Yoga Poses to Strengthen and Tone Your Booty.

There are many benefits to having strong glutes, and as you continue doing these exercises, you’ll notice improvement in posture, pain, and athletic performance. Cheers to the year of the booty!
 
 

Take Our Super Popular Abs + Booty Class!

Join YA Classes teacher Jenn Pansa as she guides you through a quick and sweaty online yoga class that targets your core and your glutes to tone and strengthen them.

Yoga Class
With Jennifer Pansa Rohr

 

This article has been read 70K+ times. Hot damn!

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Ashton August

Ashton is the founder and Content Director of YouAligned.com and YA Classes (we plant a food-producing tree for every class a member completes!). As a motivational author and speaker, distinguished yoga instructor and wellness entrepreneur, she believes that cultivating empowering self-talk and a healthy mindset opens the door to living an abundantly fulfilling life! Ashton lives in sunny Tucson, Arizona with her husband and their two rescue dogs.

ashtonaugust.com

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