Whether you are a guy or a girl, it is always an asset to have nice, strong glutes. The main exercise that will help you develop your glutes the most is obviously the squat. Look at those who have the highest squat numbers. ‘Nuff said. However, there are a number of additional exercises such as these 5 best glute exercises and a few honorable mentions, that can get your booty into fighting shape.
How to Get Big, Strong Glutes
As mentioned above, barbell squats are the king of glute exercises. They are without a doubt the single best exercise you can use to develop your glutes. I would even go as far as saying that you would not even need to do another single exercise for them; squats are really that good! However, there are always some other exercises that would be good to experiment with such as this list of best glute exercises.
Before going on to mention the top exercises, let’s take a look at some of the more important details about the glutes.
Updated slightly, here’s an oldie but a goodie from back in 2009 – 13 years later, the Twilight workout routine is still legit as ever.
Introducing Taylor Lautner and the Twilight Movies
If you are a Twilight fan, you have already seen The Twilight Saga: New Moon and you already know who Taylor Lautner is, aka Jacob Black the werewolf. And if you know about all that you know about the Twilight workout routine aka the Taylor Lautner workout routine.
I have seen the movie and I was not altogether impressed, although it was not a bad movie. I would give it a 7 out of 10, while IMDB has it at 4.5 out of 10. It is a thrilling romance/monster story for teenage girls. Almost everything about the flick is targeted at girls but I know a few bros who enjoy it and have watched it multiple times (including this author).
What I was more impressed by, is the evolution of Taylor Lautner. In nine months, this 17-year-old dude gained 30 pounds of muscle to better pull off his changing into a werewolf for New Moon. Granted, if he didn’t gain the weight the part of Jacob Black would have been recast.
Taylor Lautner Before
Taylor Lautner After
Taylor Lautner used to be a 5’10”, 140-pound fairly ripped martial artist, but now he’s a weightlifting beast. So, just how did Taylor Lautner gain 30 pounds of muscle so quickly?
He maximized his genetic potential, and you can too.
The calves are a serious problem area for most bodybuilders. You can win or lose a contest depending on whether or not you have put some time into building thick slabs of beef on the back of your legs. Women tend to have calf issues as well; many are sporting the dreaded “cankles”. Both sexes often suffer from skinny little twiggy leg syndrome, sometimes known as “bird legs”. What do these folks have in common? They are probably all making the same calf training mistakes day to day, week to week. So how can we fix it?
To build marvelous calves, you have to put time into training them frequently and from a variety of angles. First and foremost, you can’t make the following 6 calf training mistakes and also hope to build world-class wheels. Train your legs right and you will prosper. Make too many mistakes and they will continue to lag.
Bench presses and curls are two of the first exercises that are learned by new weight lifters. For men, the chest or “pecs” (short for pectorals) are second only to the biceps as the top show muscles in teenagers and young adults. This list of 5 of the best chest exercise will go a long way in building that initial base.
For women, the chest is even more important. Keeping well-built pecs can be useful in maintaining a solid, perky appearance of the breasts.
Serious fitness enthusiasts and athletes know that the pecs are involved in one of the main powerlifting exercises, the bench press. The bench press is one of three exercises, including squats and deadlifts, in a standard big 3 powerlifting competition. For this reason, it is always important for powerlifters to increase their chest strength.
Therefore it seems to me that everyone has a reason to train their chest, including men, women, athletes, bodybuilders, powerlifters, strongmen… everyone; and here are the top 5 best chest exercises you should use.
If you came to learn how to bench 700 lbs, you are better off reading Werewolf Training for Strength Gains. Although, truth to tell, you will get significantly stronger following this program.
Werewolf training is not designed to get you ripped or “toned” (::barfs::), or even super strong, but you will get stronger anyway. This is much more of a bodybuilding routine than anything else, but with great strength benefits.
When you need to drop fat quickly to get shredded, you might have to say, “screw healthy lifestyle eating habits”, and take a more aggressive approach. It’s great to eat healthily and maintain low body fat. But what if you only have 2 months to lose 20 lbs? What if you are trying to get from a decent 12% bodyfat to a ripped 6% bodyfat? Well, now it’s time to talk about jumping on a hardcore diet to melt off the fat and show those hard-earned abs.
Just like you should not skip leg day, you definitely shouldn’t go easy when it comes to your shoulder workout. Not that you need a dedicated “shoulder day” but at least try to hit them from all directions with proper intensity.
Properly building shoulder size and strength makes for a vital part of that lusted-after “V-Shape” body physique. That physique starts with a wide top, and big shoulders make up a wide top.
But despite the importance of training shoulders, they are often done wrong, which makes you vulnerable to injury and a frustrating lack of growth. It is very easy to stumble into a pretty severe injury if you train shoulders wrong.
There are about 8,675,309 workout routines that you can try. One of the most effective types of routines I have found in the first 14 years of my training career is total body training. A full-body workout will stimulate all of your muscle chains sufficiently to elicit a powerful physiological response.
The Principles of Total Body Training
Train every muscle group 3 times per week.
Select one exercise per muscle group, per day.
Hit each muscle group from a different angle or intensity in each workout.
Never go to absolute failure on any exercise; leave one rep in the bank, except sometimes on the last set.
Keep workouts under one hour, not counting warm-ups and stretching.
Change everything up after two months.
Why Might This Be the Most Effective Form of Training?
High frequency (how often you train any given muscle) means more chances to recover and grow stronger/bigger.
Low daily stimulus (# of exercises and sets per day for any given muscle) lowers your chances of overtraining.
Avoiding training to failure also lowers the chances of overtraining.
Hitting muscles from all angles each week strengthens stabilizers and is proactive injury prevention.
Avoid muscle adaptation by changing up the whole routine after 2 months.
Let’s take a few minutes to example one of the better full-body workout routines I’ve written. The next time you want to change up your routine, try this for a month or two.
Weightlifting is extremely good for you. It helps your body remain strong as you age, helps increase sports performance, helps maintain muscle mass while trying to lose weight, and even helps prevent blood clots and stroke. That being said, lifting, especially lifting heavy weights, can be intimidating if you don’t know where or how to get started. Here are some starting points if you’re thinking about how to get started with weightlifting.
This is a guest post from Shaun Sinclair, founder, and author of Stay Fit Bug. Shaun is a former 100/200-meter runner and professional athlete.
Look after your BACK! Because once that goes you are FINISHED!
It really is that simple.
The spine and the muscles surrounding it are the backbones to our physical existence ‘Pun intended’.
However, it is a part of our body that is prone to injury. Now, prevention isn’t a difficult thing to do. But one thing I am certain of is that trying to cure the issue of back pain is an entirely different matter (Yes… not always easy).
Good form
Good exercise execution
Embracing good posture
All of those things are highly important when it comes to protecting your back. Heck, embracing good posture isn’t even something you need to worry about in the gym only. In fact, that has a lot more to do with your activities outside of the weight room.
How you sit at your desk in the office.
In your bed and how you sleep (sleeping on the floor is still one of the best things you can do).
How you position your body when using a computer at home, which of course, is where most of us spend most of our time in today’s world on Facebook and the like.
These lifestyle habits are highly important in regard to back injury prevention. Now let’s see how you can change your lifestyle to proactively protect yourself from back injuries.
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