3 secrets to better side butt exercises (and why it makes a difference 10,000 x/day)

How often do you stand on one leg?

The answer is actually way more often than you think, but we’ll get to that later.

Anyway, it seems so simple, standing one leg, right?

It’s actually a fantastic way to build up your leg and hip strength, improve your balance, connect to your core and generally enhance your awesome human-ness.

But what if you could make it even better?

You can. Stand on a block, preferably a soft foam one rather than a hard cork one (extra balance challenge). Feel free to put a hand on the wall if your balance feels a bit dodgy. You’ll work better if you feel safe and stable!

But what if you could make it even MORE better than that??

You can 

Standing on one leg is ideally a position that uses lots of side butt, or gluteus medius because it provides support and stability for your pelvis when you’re standing.

Picture that muscle really snuggling your leg bone deep into your hip socket. When you feel your side hip working, you’re getting even more out of your single leg standing than you were before, making for better side butt exercises.

But what if you don’t feel your lateral hip (fancy way to say side butt)?

No worries, I got you.

Here are 3 tips that might be mega-game changers for you and give you better side butt exercise in every standing workout!

This video was actually inspired by a client I worked with last night.

She’s been doing lots of block-based moves recently and feeling cranky in her knees and not getting as much sensation in her lateral hips as she thought she could.

We worked through her technique and broke it down into components. Once we shifted her foot forward and played around with her pelvis position for a few repetitions it completely changed for her. More lateral hip work, more glute, less hip flexor gripping, less calf cramping and her knees felt fine. Yay!

Got a short attention span? Check the Instagram reel version. (Also, if you know why, oh why, Instagram periodically messes with the layout of the little text bubble so they’re all squished sideways PLEASE email and tell me how to stop it from happening)

Looking for more how-to details? Head to YouTube for the tutorial!

To summarize:

• Stand on one leg often

• Stand on a soft block sometimes

• Imagine pulling your leg bone deep into your hip socket with your glute med

• Play around with the tips in the video to make it all work even better

• Enjoy your strong, stable hips, excellent balance and stellar ability to walk well!

Wait, what, walk well? What does all this have to do with walking??

Think about what happens when you walk. Every time you take a step you spend a moment standing on one leg.

Ahhh… it all comes together now, doesn’t it.

If you’re walking your 10,000 steps a day you’re doing 10,000 single leg moments. Woo hoo!

Doing the move as an intentional exercise is a great way to prepare for the real-life, natural movement version. Walking lots, and being mindful and aware of that single leg phase when you do it, improves your ability to do the exercise. The better you do the exercise, the better you walk. The activities complement each other.

Then eventually, you get so good at the movement and you integrate it so naturally into your gait that you don’t have to spend time on the exercise unless you want to.

So try out the video and build a better side butt. Which tip works best for you? 1, 2 or 3? Hit reply and let me know!

xoxo

Alison

ps: I feel some serious attention to hips coming up… what do you want to learn? What works brilliantly about your hips? What needs some extra love and assistance?

Comment below and let’s make a plan

Alison Crouch

I’m the owner of Boomerang Pilates and creator of the Move SMART program. I teach teachers how to incorporate sustainable movement and authentic teaching in their classes.