There are a lot of lower body workouts that target the hamstrings, glutes and quads to give you a complete leg workout, but a lot of women are not necessarily interested in building bigger quads. They just want to tone up their legs and develop a bigger rounder butt.
So bearing this in mind, I thought I would share with you a workout from Whitney Simmons that specifically targets the glutes and hamstrings, and won’t necessarily leave you with thicker legs.
What I like about this particular workout is that you don’t need to use any of the machines at the gym. All you really need is a barbell and a bench. Therefore you won’t need to hang around for any of the machines to become available, and can just go through the complete workout in one go.
It is also a really intense workout because there are two tri-sets that you need to complete in total, as well as a superset and a burnout phase, and you will find that all of the individual exercises will really work your glutes to help you develop a more attractive butt.
One final thing to say is that you can rest between tri-sets, but you shouldn’t necessarily rest between each exercise because you really want to hit your legs hard.
Here is a guide to each of the exercises that are included in this workout:
TRI-SET 1
Split Lunges (Left Leg And Right Leg)
Lunges of any description are great for developing your glutes, and this first exercise is particularly effective because it requires you to perform your lunges one leg at a time whilst holding a weighted barbell on your shoulders.
You should aim to complete 4 sets of 10 reps on your left leg and 4 sets of 10 reps on your right leg. However if this is too difficult, you can try doing the same exercise with a set of dumbbells instead (or with no weights at all if you are a complete beginner).
Sumo Squats
Sumo squats are slightly different to a conventional squat because with this exercise you will be standing with a wider stance (a little wider than shoulder width) and with your feet pointing outwards slightly. This helps you squat with more weight (so you can still use a weighted barbell if you can) and really targets your glutes and inner thighs.
Once again you should aim to complete 4 sets of 10 reps to complete the first set of exercises.
TRI-SET 2
Dumbbell Romanian Dead Lift
After a short rest, you can move on to the first exercise of the second tri-set – the dumbbell Romanian dead lift. This can be performed with a dumbbell or a kettlebell and can be executed whilst standing on some raised platforms (as shown in the video) or whilst standing on the floor.
With this exercise you are simply bending forward and lifting the weight upwards from between your legs, ensuring that you keep your legs straight to really isolate the glutes and hamstrings. You should aim to complete 3 sets of 10 reps.
Sumo Squat
Extending your legs outwards and pointing your feet outwards, you can then move on to the sumo squat, which in this case can be done with the same dumbbell or the same kettlebell that you used in the previous exercise. You should also aim to complete 3 sets of 10 reps.
Single Leg Hip Thrust (Left Leg And Right Leg)
The next exercise can be performed without any weights because it is challenging enough just using your own bodyweight. All you need is a bench because you will be leaning back on this bench, lowering your butt to the floor (without touching it) and lifting yourself upwards with one leg, raising your other leg as you do so.
With this exercise you should look to do 3 sets of 10 reps on each leg to complete this particular tri-set.
SUPERSET
Pulsing Sumo Squats
The next exercise is another variant of the sumo squat because this time you will be performing your squats whilst holding a weight plate over your head, and with a bench between your legs. With each rep you should stop just before you touch the bench, and aim to complete 15 reps.
Sumo Squat Holds
Continuing on from the previous exercise, you should then squat down so that you are not quite touching the bench, and then hold this position for 15 seconds, which is a lot harder than it looks.
BURNOUT
The final phase of this workout is the burnout phase, which as the name suggests, is designed to completely exhaust your muscles one last time with a variety of gruelling bodyweight lunges.
To go into a little more detail, you should look to do long lunges forwards on your left leg, long lunges forward on the right leg, jumping lunges forward on your leg leg, jumping sumo squats and jumping lunges forward on your right leg, and aim to do 30 reps of each one to complete the entire workout.
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