Rump Shaker
“All I want to do is zoom-a-zoom-zoom-zoom, and a poom-poom, just shake ya rump.” 
What do we want more than almost anything? To have a nice rear. It’s on the top of the list for most fitness enthusiasts. Hell, we all wanna look good walkin’ away.
There’s more to having a perfect bum than you realize.
Your glutes are the biggest and most important muscle you have – they are the cornerstone of our bodies. The harder you work your glutes and the more you build them, the more it will benefit your body. Your glutes help keep your hips and entire body in alignment and allow good posture.
Your glutes are instrumental in rotating your hips and legs while supporting your pelvis during everyday movements and exercise. If your glutes aren’t strong enough, your spine has to over-compensate (hence the back pain). In addition, weak glutes cause weaknesses in your knees – causing them to turn inward when landing on the ground and placing additional pressure on your kneecaps. This can also affect your IT band – the ligament that runs outside of the thigh from the hip to the shin.
The dilemma is in the modern day scenario, we are often sitting so much on our rears we are not activating them enough and they lose strength. Without active, strong glutes, we experience an imbalance in the front vs. back side of our body. This leaves the hip flexors overactive and tight and pulls your pelvis forward.
What to do, what to do….
Work ‘em. Added bonus – since your glute muscles are so large, working them (as with working other large muscle groups) raises your metabolic rate.
Excellent glute strengthening exercises include:
- Lunges – do repetitive lunges on one leg, then switch
- Squats – load up on the weight so your body works harder and go deep for a full extension!
- Squeezing your glutes when you work out – keep the contraction tight at all times (when you lift up from that squat)
- Contracting your glutes when you are standing (all those soccer games will pay off exponentially if you work your rear while watching)
- One-leg exercises (one-leg squats and lunges will work your muscle 1/3 as hard)
- Bridges – lie on your back and perform double and single leg bridges (squeezing your glutes the entire time you lower and raise)
- One-leg step-ups onto an elevated surface (step/bench, etc) – squeeze at the top of your raise
- Bulgarian split squats – put your back toward a weight bench and lift one foot onto the bench behind you and squat
- Kettlebell swings (again, squeezing tight at the top of the movement)
- Side walking squats (with a band around your legs) – squat low!
Try these exercises as frequently as possible to help improve the activation of your glute muscles and in turn, see the difference in your post rump shakin’. You’re welcome 😉
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It’s been a couple of months since I have truly had a good workout post my knee debacle. My biggest concern was what would happen to all that hard work and results I had achieved with my hard core fitness routine?
