Rookwood
Active Member
Butts & Guts is one of my favorite workouts! A few years ago, I was doing a lot of Firm workouts (read: tons of leg presses on the tall step) in the hopes of giving my aging rear a better shape. What I found, after a couple of years of doing this, was that my butt looked fine if I happened to be squeezing my glute muscles, but it didn’t really look any better when I was just standing there relaxed. About 6 months ago, I got Butts & Guts and started doing portions of it once or twice a week (typically, either the standing leg work or the floor leg work as an add-on to a shorter-than-usual cardio workout). After about 3 months of doing this, I noticed that my butt did look rounder and perkier than before and – most importantly – that this was true even if I wasn’t flexing the muscles. This is so important! No one wants to put in all that effort only to find that they’d have to walk around with their cheeks clenched all day in order for their hard work to show.
Other things I love about the workout: the premixes and flexibility, the awesome music, and the calorie burn, which is lacking from a lot of barre-type butt workouts.
The exercises that feel the most painful/effective are the one-legged squats with one leg behind on the tall step, the no-equipment squat/lunge combo, the firewalkers, the walking lunges, and the floor work.
The only exercises which don’t seem to do much for me are the side-to-side lunges where you punch toward the floor (but perhaps this is meant to be more of an “active recovery”), and the deadlifts, even with my toes up on dumbbells. If I could change anything about the workout, I would replace those side-lunge-punches with the defensive squat/line-tap drill from Drill Max (I really feel those in the glutes), and swap the regular deadlifts with the deadlifts from Legs & Glutes, where you have one leg out in front of the other instead of side-by-side – those are much more effective for me.
General glute-exercise comment: I can never seem to get a barbell positioned such that it doesn’t hurt my neck when I do squats with a barbell. What I’ve taken to doing is putting on a 20-lb weighted vest, and then holding dumbbells on my shoulders to make a total weight that is close to what is being used in the video. This is so much easier for me and really takes the dread factor out of that exercise. If you are in fact considering doing some kind of “Butts & Guts Part II: Electric Boogaloo” video, you might consider a segment that involves doing some glute exercises while wearing a weighted vest. That would be new and different.
I realize I forgot to say anything about the ab segments; I use those too as add-ons to other workouts. I love the stability ball abs for days when I know I need to work my core, but can’t bring myself to do a “normal” ab routine.
I hope all our comments here have been helpful for you. You’ve helped us all so much, it feels good to be able to return the favor just a little bit.
Other things I love about the workout: the premixes and flexibility, the awesome music, and the calorie burn, which is lacking from a lot of barre-type butt workouts.
The exercises that feel the most painful/effective are the one-legged squats with one leg behind on the tall step, the no-equipment squat/lunge combo, the firewalkers, the walking lunges, and the floor work.
The only exercises which don’t seem to do much for me are the side-to-side lunges where you punch toward the floor (but perhaps this is meant to be more of an “active recovery”), and the deadlifts, even with my toes up on dumbbells. If I could change anything about the workout, I would replace those side-lunge-punches with the defensive squat/line-tap drill from Drill Max (I really feel those in the glutes), and swap the regular deadlifts with the deadlifts from Legs & Glutes, where you have one leg out in front of the other instead of side-by-side – those are much more effective for me.
General glute-exercise comment: I can never seem to get a barbell positioned such that it doesn’t hurt my neck when I do squats with a barbell. What I’ve taken to doing is putting on a 20-lb weighted vest, and then holding dumbbells on my shoulders to make a total weight that is close to what is being used in the video. This is so much easier for me and really takes the dread factor out of that exercise. If you are in fact considering doing some kind of “Butts & Guts Part II: Electric Boogaloo” video, you might consider a segment that involves doing some glute exercises while wearing a weighted vest. That would be new and different.
I realize I forgot to say anything about the ab segments; I use those too as add-ons to other workouts. I love the stability ball abs for days when I know I need to work my core, but can’t bring myself to do a “normal” ab routine.
I hope all our comments here have been helpful for you. You’ve helped us all so much, it feels good to be able to return the favor just a little bit.
