For years, you might have been wanting to tone your booty to Kim Kardashian proportions—and hoping that it might be as simple as squeezing your glutes while you walk. In reality, you need a lot more than just walking to achieve that firm, toned and lifted butt that you’re looking for.
Although walking does not tone your glutes, proper form and technique can help give them a boost. Doing so will help the other muscles in your body work as well. It takes about a year or two for most people to see the results of their diets and exercises. Slight variations in diet and exercise routines can also lead to long-term gains.
Let’s take a look at how to complete and implement exercises in your walks to tone your bum, how to maximize your treadmill workout to strengthen your glutes, and how to build muscles around your hips to make them look wider.
Related: Does Elliptical Tone Your Butt?
What Exercises Lift Your Buttocks?
With little equipment, abutt lifting exercises are great for developing a strong, toned butt. The squat works various muscle groups, including the gluteus maximus, minimus, and calves. These exercises are quick and easy to do, and they can help get your rear working for you.
While walking does burn calories and fat, it does not necessarily target your posterior, unless you are walking uphill or upstairs for most of the workout.
To lift your buttocks, you can do Jump Uphill, Step Ups, Squads, Warrior 3 to lunges. Skate Strides can also be an excellent workout to tone your butt and get that lifted buttocks you’re looking for.
“(Walking) does not overload the glute muscles enough to cause hypertrophy,” exercise physiologist Tom Holland told POPSUGAR.
Hypertrophy is exercise that stimulates muscle growth. In other words, your body primarily uses the quad, shin and calf muscles for walking, instead of the glutes. You might have heard that you can simply squeeze your glutes for 10-second intervals as you walk, which does strengthen them, but it will not change the size or shape, according to Tom Holland.
Below are exercises that will help lift your buttocks. Instead of regular tennis shoes or running shoes, we recommend you to use cross training shoes for these workouts. If you do not know the difference, this article will help you understand: Cross Training Shoes Differences & Usages.
Recommended Shoes: Top 15 Best Cross Training Shoes for Women
Jump Uphill
Make sure your knees are able to safely handle the weight and shock of this bounce. This will be a great way to get that bouncing butt for you.
Step-ups
One way to remedy this problem is to add step-ups to your walks. To complete this exercise, you only need a bench, a picnic table, bleachers or a large rock. Start at the object and walk a quarter mile away, and then return, completing 22 step-ups. Repeat this process approximately four times.
This exercise will help you tone your derriere even if your walking circuit is fairly flat. According to Harvard Health, walking up stairs can burn calories two or three times more quickly than walking on a flat surface, even at a leisurely pace.
Squats
Try adding squats to your daily walk, and you will have a toned posterior before you know it. For the best results, walk for three minutes and stop to do a minute of deep squats. Repeat these steps 10 times.
Your glutes can improve your performance in the squat by developing proper form and tone. The main reason why your thighs are growing faster and bigger than your butt is that they are harder to activate than your glutes. This condition leads to the dormancy of your glutes.
It’s not a magic number, and it’s up to you. Ideally, aim for 3 sets of at least 12 reps of each type of squat. This will help you get started. You can do these exercises in small sets or complete them all in one workout.
While most strength-training exercises can help you burn fat, they require multiple muscle groups and joints to work properly. The key to starting a new routine is to do it for 30 days in a row. This will help you establish a regular practice and build a habit. Ideally, perform each type of squat for 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps each day.
If you do 100 squats a day for 14 days
Doing 100 reps of anything elevates your cardiovascular system to an insane level. For 30 days, do this for 30 minutes a day. It will help build a habit of doing this type of exercise and prevent injury. Varying the number of reps will help you get used to the routine.
If you do 100 squats a day for 30 days
Doing a hundred squats a day for 30 days can help build up your lower body and improve your leg muscles. Doing it incorrectly can cause injury and strain. Some fitness experts suggest that people do the squat every day to keep their bodies mentally and physically active. According to experts, doing the exercise can help improve one’s health and prevent illness.
Skate Strides
Another exercise you can implement in your walks is the skate stride. To do this exercise, take large diagonal steps and lunge on each side, moving the opposite elbow over your knee. Stay in this position for a few seconds on each side, and then switch to the other leg, completing 25 repetitions on each leg.
Traveling Warrior III to Lunges
Lastly, you can try the traveling warrior III to lunge exercise. Start by balancing on only one foot and lean forward until your torso and other leg are parallel to the ground. Then step forward with the back leg to a lunge position, making sure your knee is over your ankle. Move in this pattern for 10 minutes, either at the end or beginning of your walking workout, or you can use it as a break in the middle.
If you are feeling especially ambitious, you can do a mixture of squats and lunges. Walk for 10 minutes, and then complete 20 lunges and 15 squats, repeating the process three times in total.
Non Slip Booty Resistance Bands
Walking Backwards on Treadmill for Glutes
If you do not prefer to walk outside, or the typical weather conditions prevent it, you can use an incline setting on your treadmill to make your rear work harder. Increase the incline every couple of minutes until you get to a 10 percent incline.
Walking backward on the treadmill burns more calories and engages your backside far more than walking forward. You can build butt muscle and tone your glutes by walking backward on the treadmill.
Go slowly at first to make sure you do not trip, but increase the speed as you adjust. Eventually, you might even be able to walk backward on an incline.
How to Do the Butt Walk
You may have heard of bum walking and understandably thought it was a way of walking upright to tone your rear. However, it is actually a movement often used in yoga that strengthens your glutes and involves moving forward in a seated position by lifting one side of your buttocks at a time by squeezing your glutes. To learn how to do this movement, watch the first two minutes of the video below.
How to Make Your Hips Wider
At first, your rear might seem to be getting flatter instead of more pronounced, but that is because you will be burning calories and slimming down for the first few weeks. After this, your muscles will start to look more defined. Walking alone will not tone or make your bum look bigger, but adding strength exercises to your walks will help you get that coveted booty over the course of approximately six to eight weeks.
When you think about wide hips, you might wonder how it is even possible to make your hips wider—or maybe you are wondering why you would want to. When people talk about big hips, they are talking about the ratio of hips to waist. To attain the hourglass figure that is currently in vogue, you have to cultivate strong shoulders, a small waist and a wide rear and hip span.
You can determine your waist-to-hip ratio by measuring the circumference of your waist at the narrowest part and the circumference of your hips at the widest part. Next, you divide the circumference of your waist by the circumference of your hips.
For instance, if your waist is 26 inches and your hips are 31 inches, you would have a ratio of .838. A waist-to-hip ratio that is equal to or less than .85 in women gives them the coveted wide hip look, as well as being a sign of overall good health.
In fact, according to a report by the World Health Organization, a waist-to-hip ratio that is greater than 1.0 can accurately predict a women’s cardiovascular health and their risk of diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
You cannot change your bone structure (at least not naturally), but you can build up the muscles around your hips (including your backside) while slimming your waist in order to achieve the look of wider hips.
Since we have already discussed exercises for toning your rear (some of which also can help build muscle around your hips), let us outline several exercises that specifically target the hips.
Side Lunges for Glutes
The first exercise you should complete in order to strengthen your hips is the side lunge. To complete this exercise, stand with your feet wider than two feet apart and bend one knee to transition into a lunge, while keeping your other leg straight. Clench your glutes, and then switch to the other side. You can also hold dumbbells in each hand to increase the resistance.
Side Leg Lifts for Glutes
One of the other most important exercises for your hips is the side leg lift. To do a side leg lift, lie on one side of your body with your legs on top of each other. Raise your top leg as high as it can go, pausing at the top, before returning to the resting position. Try doing three sets of 15 repetitions on each leg.
Donkey Kicks for Bigger Booty
The third crucial hip exercise is a donkey kick. This exercise is for people who want bigger bum.
- Get down to your hands and knees
- Keeping your hands under your shoulders and your knees a hip-width distance from each other.
- Raise one leg at a time
- Keeping your knee bent
- Use your glutes to move your foot toward the ceiling and squeezing at the top
- Do three sets of 20 repetitions on each leg for a good workout.
Bridges for Buttocks
Lastly, a bridge (or hip raise) is an excellent strengthening exercise for both your glutes and your hips. Lie on the ground and bend your knees at a 90-degree angle. With your arms straight and your palms on the ground, lift your hips by clenching your glutes and resting your upper body on your shoulders and back. Pause for a second or two before going back to resting position. Try three sets of 15 repetitions.
Does walking Perk up your butt?
Although walking is not ideal for building up your butt, it can still help you build it by doing some additional exercises. While walking is the most primal form of exercise, it doesn’t provide the same results as proper nutrition and exercise.
While walking does not simply tone your rear by itself (at least not on flat ground), there are several ways to tone your backside during a walking workout and make your backside look bigger by widening the muscles in your hips. To summarize, here are several of the main points from this article:
Austin is the author of loveatfirstfit.com and a personal trainer with extensive knowledge in nutrition. Austin is passionate about helping others to find a suitable healthy lifestyle and feel good about themselves. Austin’s goal is to help people push their limits and achieve their physical performance.
Last update on 2024-04-26 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
