Get Your Rear in Gear: Torch Fat with 2 Simple Strategies

The more muscle you have, the more fat you burn. You probably already know this. You've probably heard it time and time again. What you may not know is that your glutes are home to the largest muscle in your body: the gluteus maximus. This means that doing butt-focused exercises does more than tone your tush: it also torches fat. And not just fat from on your behind, either. By building the massive muscle on your backside  — muscle that needs to be fueled and fed  — you are increasing your overall fat burning abilities. You’re turning yourself into a metabolic machine.

So, how do you do this?

Easy. First, you’re going to pick up some resistance. When it comes building muscle in any part of your body, bodyweight exercises will only get you so far. When you really what to ramp up your fat burning engines, you’ve got to pick up some weights.  This truth holds especially true for your butt. Your glutes are one of the most used muscles in your body, falling in just behind your ocular muscles, heart and tongue. They are used to keep your spine (and therefore entire torso) upright, and they propel your body forward.

With this constant use, your butt is used to moving your own bodyweight: it simply isn’t enough of a challenge to get the results most of us want. If you want to see a more shapely backside and an enhanced metabolism, you’ve got to suck it up and pick up some resistance.

The Best Resistance for Training Your Glutes

Arguably, any resistance is good resistance, but our top equipment pick for glute training is the sandbag. Not only can it be used to train many other muscle groups, but it’s easy to adjust the amount of weight in the bag, so you can increase or reduce loads to fit the exercise and your current lifting abilities. When a move starts feeling too easy with your current load, just add more. You’ll keep pushing past plateaus and maximizing the fat-blasting power of your glutes.

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The Best Exercises for Building Glutes

There is no one answer to this. While squats are undoubtedly one of the best exercises for your glutes, sticking solely to squats won’t give you the best results. To develop the strongest, most shapely and most energy-efficient glutes, you need to do a variety of exercises that work your butt in a bunch of different ways. Sure, do squats, but also exercises like step ups, lunges, lateral lunges, deadlifts and Romanian deadlifts, bridging, oil rigs, back-kicks and sidekicks. By consistently infusing your routines with new moves, you’re going to keep building more muscle and seeing more well-rounded results. What’s more, many of the exercises that target your butt also target your quads  —  another huge fat burning group of muscles. End result: you’re getting more fat-burning bang for working your butt.

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