Women’s Lower Body Workout for Amazing Legs and Glutes ⋆ Fitwitchery

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muscular woman doing banded jump squats on beach

This workout will shape your glutes and hamstrings, making it a great women’s lower body workout for that nice round booty.

This one’s for the ladies. Who doesn’t want slim, shapely legs and a round, apple booty?

But of course, it’s not just for ladies… however…

Of course not. But here’s the thing.

When I find a full body workout designed by a man, or for men, I usually find the upper body is relatively much more worked than the lower. Either the exercises themselves aren’t that hard on the lower body, or the volume of lower body is much less.

The reason for this is twofold. And hold your hats, because I’m about to make some blanket statements that in no way are meant to be true for every individual. I’m also leaving out the huge gray area of individuals that don’t fit into a traditional male-female dichotomy. So, take this with a huge grain of salt.

For one, men generally have much more upper body strength than women. While males have more strength and larger muscles overall, there is much more discrepancy between the sexes on upper body strength than lower body strength. Therefore, they need more exercises and more resistance to get fatigued on the upper body than women do.

But also, most people like to work out their “problem areas.” Women’s priorities lead them towards a lower body workout; men’s, an upper. This could be biological or sociological—it’s probably both. Many men find more pleasure in shaping their shoulders, chest and arms than their legs. Hence the endless memes on “leg day” and such.

Women, of course, have endless pressure on them to have both lean legs and a round booty, and so many (myself included) enjoy shaping that portion of their bodies. There is also less of a fear of muscular “bulk” in some women’s minds when doing a lower body workout, as compared to upper body.

For what it’s worth, everyone should work their whole bodies. Muscles aren’t masculine, and there are far too many men at the gym with underdeveloped lower bodies. But I’ll get off my soapbox.

We like doing what we’re good at.

So, for biological and societal reasons, there tends to be a heavier emphasis on the lower body in women’s workouts.

But also, we like doing what we’re good at. This is true for hobbies, work, school, anything. It feels good to be good at something.

If you do a lot of squats, you’ll get good at them. And it’s probably going to be more pleasurable to do them.

You ever just don’t like doing a certain exercise? It’s usually because you’re doing it wrong and your body knows it. It feels wrong. Your brain usually interprets this as not liking it.

I used to hate swings. God, did I ever. I didn’t get anything from them, and they felt hard in a way I couldn’t pinpoint.

But here’s the thing: I was doing them wrong. I was using my lower back way more than my glutes, which led to a mild discomfort and a lot of dissatisfaction. I didn’t get why everyone loved this exercise so much.

(Full disclosure: I still don’t love swings. And I’m still working on doing them correctly. But I like them more!)

My point is that if you’re used to working out one part of your body, you’ll probably have much better form, get better (and viewable) results, and it will feel good. Therefore, when you set out to do a workout, which is by definition uncomfortable, then you’ll likely gravitate towards what feels good.

Butt what about the glutes?

Glutes are finally getting more and more of the attention they deserve. This is in large part due to Bret Contreras, the “Glute Guy,” who has a wealth of scientific and experiential knowledge on the subject. He’s got a site, exercise equipment, videos, books. Check him out.

Of course, like anything that’s popular, the reason isn’t because it’s good for us. It’s because it’s trendy. And it’s now popular and attractive to have a nice round booty. If you’re not physically gifted with one, or you’re on the leaner side, one way to round that butt out is—you guessed it—glute work! Yet another reason to find a women’s lower body workout, like the one today, that focuses on the glutes.

It’s far too easy to completely neglect the glutes (and hamstrings, for that matter) on a lower body workout. Not only have they been historically left out of lower body workouts, but our bodies tend to not activate those muscles as readily as they should.

Modern society is far more sedentary than our ancestors, and so our glutes are underdeveloped. The solution is to focus on the glutes with certain workouts and exercises, and also to make sure these muscles are “turned on.”

Glute activation.

Lower body exercises tend to be compound exercises involving multiple muscle groups. This means you get a lot of metabolic benefit from lower body exercises, but it also means that one muscle group can dominate over another. If your glutes are underdeveloped, your quadriceps can bear the extra burden. By doing a few glute isolation exercises at the top of your workout however, you can turn those muscles on so they’re used more efficiently in the rest of the workout.

Today’s workout.

Today’s workout starts off with a short HIIT meant to really burn those glutes. While usually I like a burnout to go at the end of a workout, here we’re doing it first in order to get those glutes fired up and ready to go.

You’ll do 40 seconds of weighted and/or banded bridges, followed by 20 seconds of isometric bridges. You can keep with the weight for those 20 seconds, or do bodyweight. Just know that there is no rest here—just reps followed by an isometric hold. Of course, if you need to rest (as you likely will), come down, take a breath, and continue. Your butt should be on fire after those 4 minutes. And then, the meat and potatoes of the workout…

High round circuit.

This workout is eight rounds (hence the name, “Octomatrix”). I love to vary up my formats, as it means I not only give my muscles new chances to adapt and grow, but it keeps it interesting. With high-round circuits, the first round or two might not feel hard. However, it should add up by the second half of the workout, and by the end, you should be toast.

And to me, well-worked glutes, hamstrings and quads equals the perfect women’s lower body workout.

So, yeah, while this workout is appropriate for any and all sexes and genders, ladies, this one’s especially for you.

Instructions.

Octomatrix Workout.

Part 1:

40&20×4

Weighted banded bridges
Weighted iso bridges

Part 2:

8 rounds

Weighted sliding side lunge L – 6
Bodyweight sliding side lunge, back lunge L – 6
Weighted sliding side lunge R – 6
Bodyweight sliding side lunge, back lunge R – 6
Weighted (and banded, if able) jump squats – 10
Banded bodyweight jump squats – 12

Watch the video for full instructions.

I explain all the exercises above.

And ladies, I would love to do a full workout for you in real time, but my schedule doesn’t allow it (I have a 5-month-old with spotty napping habits). But you can write down the workout in your journal.

Weighted banded bridges.

Lie on the ground with your knees bent. Put a barbell, sandbag, kettlebell or dumbbell across your hips (heavier weight is best). If you need more resistance, place one or two resistance bands around your knees and/or calves. Lift your hips towards the ceiling, clenching your glutes. Lower back to the ground.

Isometric bridges.

Same as above, but hold the upper portion of the movement for 20 seconds. If you need to drop the weight for these, do so.

Weighted sliding side lunge.

Hold a kettlebell in front of you, either by the horns (hardest), from the bottom or racked up by your shoulder. From standing, bend down with weight mostly on one leg while the other leg, on a furniture slider or equivalent (plastic lid, etc.), slides out to the side. Be sure to keep your knees behind your toes and your butt back. Go down to where your thigh is parallel to the ground, and return to standing.

Sliding side lunge, back lunge.

From standing, bend down with weight mostly on one leg with the other leg on a furniture slider, sliding out to the side. Go down to where your thigh is parallel to the ground, and return to standing. Then bend down on the same leg, this time sliding the other leg sliding behind you in a back lunge. Return to standing.

Weighted banded jump squats.

Place a resistance band just above your knees. If you’re using two, put the other around your calves. Hold the kettlebell in front of you, either by the horns, upside down in a goblet hold or hanging down between your legs (it just gets tricky with the bands). From standing, sit your butt down and back, keeping torso relatively upright. Make sure your weight is in your heels and your knees don’t come far over your toes. Jump up in the air, returning to squat stance for the next rep. (You can modify this by removing the minibands.)

Banded bodyweight jump squats.

Still with the bands around your knees and/or calves, sit your butt down and back until your thighs are about parallel with the ground. Jump up in the air, returning to squat stance for the next rep.