3 Overlooked Exercises That Really Kick Cellulite's Butt

Random fact: Having liposuction can increase your breast size. No kidding. According to a study in Dermatological Surgery, 43% of the participating women experienced bosom expansion after liposuction. Later, thirty percent of these chicks had to hit Nordstrom's and start shopping for bras a whole cup size larger.

But if the chance of sudden-boob inflation does not make liposuction anymore enticing to you, and you're utterly convinced that exercising only makes cellulite spread faster, please at least consider that you may have been performing the wrong exercises to paralyze that Jello on your backside.

Let me explain. A few months ago, I met a sports medicine trainer who worked with professional model and Olympia competitor Monica Brant. Gasp! Amazed to find someone who knew first hand about Brant's fitness regime, I begged to know, "How in the world does she get such great legs?"

Well, instead of directly answering my question, the doctor went into a speech about how most people exercise entirely the wrong way, using the wrong weights and never getting the results they want. Snoozing … Finally, after hearing about fitness bloopers, we got to the kernel of why most women have issues with cellulite-they focus on the wrong muscles. Ha! Thank goodness for fitness breakthroughs.

As the doc sees it, in the gym, women focus too much on working the front leg muscles while neglecting the cellulite burning hind muscles. The thighs of most women are relatively large anyway because we use them to walk and kick car doors shut when our hands are full of shopping bags. The thigh also gets a workout during forward moving exercises like bike peddling and running to get to work on time.

But if you want to rouse your backside into elite cellulite fighting mode, you need to focus on building the muscles on the back of your leg called the hamstrings, and your buttocks muscles too.

Here are three exercises that will help you do just that:

1. Hamstring curl

The hamstring curl plumps up your hamstrings to add more sexy curves to your profile.

Most gyms have either standing or lying hamstring machines. (While generic hamstring curl guidelines follow, use he manufacturer's instructions for your gym's machine.)

Start off with an easy weight, like 10 pounds, to get a feel for using your hamstrings. As you use your hamstrings to lift the weight to the top of the movement, really squeeze your back leg muscles to intensify the movement and encourage new muscle growth. Then return your leg the starting position and repeat the motion 10-12 times.

To make this exercise effective, use a weight that is heavy enough to allow you to perform 10-12 correct, complete and muscle exhausting hamstring curls. Do three sets of this exercise twice per week.

2. The door squat

If you'd rather ditch the gym, you can still squeeze in butt exercises during episodes of Dr. Phil by doing the "door squat."

To do the door squat, open a door to a 45 degree angle from the wall. Now stand, with your legs shoulder width apart, about six inches away from the edge of the door facing the door's side and both doorknobs. Next, grab a door knob with each of your hands.

Now, to start this cellulite burning motion, bend your knees and lower your legs until your hamstrings are parallel with the floor. Pause and squeeze your hamstrings and buttocks. Now raise yourself upward again by squeezing your hamstrings and butt muscles. Repeat the door squat 15-20 times. Perform three sets of this exercise twice per week.

The key to knowing whether or not your doing this exercise right is that you should feel your back leg muscles and butt doing the work. You should have absolutely little or no strain on your knees because, again, your butt is doing all of the work, not your thighs or knees.

3. Walking up the hill

Once Dr. Phil is over, go outside and look for some hills. Walking uphill forces your hamstrings and buttocks to work in order to push you upward against the force of gravity. Even though walking on flat trails is super exercise, hills and inclines turbo charge your exercise so much you should actually feel your backside tingling away fat bulges as you mount those hills.

If you frequent the gym, just use the incline function on the treadmill to turn your brisk walk into a cellulite broiler. Aim for an incline of at least 30 to 60% on the treadmill to optimally work your hamstrings and buttocks. This will accentuate your leg muscles and obliterate chunky-butt syndrome.

Ahhhh, at the end of the day, does not it feel empowering to shake around your cellulite instead of letting cellulite shake you around.

Source:

Finzi E. Breast Enlargement Induced by Liposuction. Dermatologic Surgery, September 2003; vol 29, no 9, pp 928-930.

3 Overlooked Exercises That Really Kick Cellulite's Butt by Naweko San-Joyz