DO // Leg Day

Like most women I have a love and hate for leg days in the gym. A major LOVE because leg day helps us defy gravity and raise our bums off the ground and hate because it leaves us tired for the rest of day and walking out of the gym like a baby gazelle.

Training legs for women is the equivalent to training upper body for men. For most women our body strength is more prominent in our lower body, but we don't the glutes as much as we should. Did you know that the glute is one of the largest muscles on our body and one that doesn't get trained often enough? My coach, Michelle Mein, has me training glutes 3 times a week and I've seen such an incredible improvement on my backside. (who says asian girls can't have a butt)

It's important that when training your booty that you activate your glute muscles. If you haven't checked out my blog post on traveling fit, do it! There are some floor work exercises that can be done prior to training legs that will help fire up those glute muscles to activate them prior to starting any type of lifting. 

Here are some things to keep in mind while trying to build some muscle on that butt!

1. Do NOT fear weights! Strength training with weights has been one of the biggest factors in building the curves I've always wanted. You need to build lean muscle mass onto your body in order to trim to fat and build the tone. Cardio will help you burn fat, but you have to increase muscle mass on your body in order to keep fat off.

2. Do NOT fear the carbs or protein! The right nutrition and macronutrients from the right type of carbs will help fuel your body through your workouts and fuel your muscles. 

3. Train all angles of your glutes. Most women will focus on squats alone. While squats can definitely help build the curves, you can't forget about creating roundness on the sides. Side lunges, curtseys, and sumo squats will help. 

4. Stretch and rest!! Recovery is an integral part of muscle building. This is a part of my fitness journey I'm learning the importance of. Having a tight butt is nice, but in order to help that grow, you gotta stretch, foam roll, and do all the essential things the body needs to continue moving. 

Sorry guys I never have time to record myself working out so I've linked up some of my favorite examples of them to each exercise. 

Start off by doing 3 sets of 15-20 of each exercise. Here's a list of some of my favorite glute exercises:

Add Massy Arias' Plyo Smith Machine Challenge for additional sweat and have fun!