Bend your leg at the hip to get a great butt...

here's how.

There's two parts to getting a great butt, and you already know both...exercise and diet.

The muscles in your butt are like any other muscles in your body, they can't be seen, or appreciated if they're hidden under fat. Just like everyone has a six pack hidden under their beer belly everyone POTENTIALLY has “buns of marble” ;-)

As usual, the amount of fat depends mostly on what, and how much you eat. Calories still (and always will count most) so if you want ANYONE to see your sexy buns, start with your diet. Now that you, and everyone else will see your glorious glutius maximus because you have a solid diet plan, you have a choice.

You can have them see what looks, and feels like a half full hot water bottle, or like a sculpture, and feels like (use your imagination here). Next you have to target that butt with exercises that sculpt that area specifically.

Muscles only really do two things, contract (get shorter or tense up) or relax, to get a nice butt you have to do exercises that move your hips and / or move the top part of your leg away from your chest.

It's actually easy to guess which exercises work best to build nice buns by looking at which athletes have that...asset.

Top rankings go to figure skaters and ballet dancers, they have great "gluts" BECAUSE of the motions they do in dancing and skating.

Both dancers and figure skaters jump up by bending at the knee and hips then drive their legs straight. Figure skaters also push to the side with their hips to skate, both of these motions build your bottom very well.

Push to the side or push straight down with the top of your leg and you'll get a skater butt too!

Focus on working your gluts HARD rather than long, a strong muscle is a firm and shapely muscle.

One or two resistance exercises focused on those muscles, a solid diet plan, and two or three cardio sessions a week will give you the most results in the least time.

Do ONE SET of 12 OR LESS repetitions, the first repetition should be hard, and a 13th repetition should be IMPOSSIBLE

One set that takes maximum effort ONLY on your "maximum strength day" (link and page to come soon) will give you the fastest results AND the least training time.

I'll add more exercises that focus on this popular muscle group as I make videos that show HOW to do them safely and properly because it's easier to show you than to describe them.

Until then here are some safe and easily described butt exercises.

My favorite resistance exercises that focus on, or isolate the Glutial muscles and are:

The Hip Isolation Machine - (picture is coming soon:-)

If you have to move fast to do the full motion, reduce the weight UNTIL you can do it slowly as described here.

1) raise one leg and hook the back of your knee over the pad.

2) stand with a straight back and support yourself with your hands.

3) slowly pull your knee down by straightening your leg from the hip 3 to 4 seconds downnn.

4) pause for one or two seconds.

5) slowly control your knee back upppp to the starting position over 3 to 4 seconds.

6) do 12 or FEWER repetitions.

Repeat the exercise on your next maximum strength day ONLY.

The butt blaster using a resistance band -

1) Hold one end of the resistance band in each hand and step on the middle of it with the right foot, or loop it around you foot.

2) Get down on your hands and knees.

3) Straiten your right leg up and back while tightening your butt SLOWLY three or four seconds to straighten, hold for one or two return SLOWLY for three or four.

4) Do 12 repetitions OR LESS 13 should be IMPOSSIBLE.

5) Switch feet and repeat.

Repeat the exercise on your next maximum strength day ONLY.

One more,

Step up with dumbbells:

Be careful with this one you have to keep your balance, and moving slowly as described above will make this MUCH more challenging for your balance, quads and gluts than doing it at a faster pace.

Be warned you may not need any weight or a single dumbbell on the same side your working.

You can use your free hand to stabilize yourself on a wall exercise machine or doorway.

Find a bench or step high enough that when you place your foot on it your knee is level with that hip or a little below, but NEVER above.

1) Hold a dumbbell in each hand.2) Stand with good posture, feet hip width apart, toes pointing forward.3) Stand as close to the step as you can and place your right foot on the step.4) Move your whole torso forward to shift most of your weight to the right foot.5) Ideally you want to lift your whole body up using only your right thigh and gluts.

(If you can't, use smaller dumbbells, a lower step or both. You can lift your left heel onto the toes of your left foot to help you get started.) 6) As much as is possible use the top leg to lift you 3 or 4 seconds up, pause for 1 or 2, then 3 or 4 down.

If you can only do one or two that's good, as long as you're it's so hard that you couldn't do more if your life depended on it.

7) Repeat step 6 for up to 12 repetitions.8) Repeat the process with the left leg.

This last exercise is AWESOME, but not my favorite because it doesn't isolate the target muscle and you may be limited by the maximum your quads can do instead of the target muscle.

Again please be very careful with this one because the balance aspect is especially challenging when this is performed so slowly.

Okay, it's firm because it's strong, now for the finishing touch.

Do high intensity interval cardio exercises two or three times a week with a rest day the day before AND after each cardio session.

To make the most of using that butt pick cardio that uses it like a stair climber, elliptical trainer (on a steep setting) or "skating" style machine. These are the safest choices.

Skating or rollerblading are excellent, but wear the proper safety gear and learn how. Take a lesson if you're a beginner.

Running stairs or up hills are also fantastic choices. Start slow and speed up or you risk serious injury.