Yoga butts are awesome. Don’t believe me? Just look at how popular sites like www.girlsinyogapants.com (warning – sexy pics may be NSFW) are these days.

Okay, so I know a lot of the readers of that site must be male, and yes, it is obviously just a massive visual lust-fest where the female butt is totally and unashamedly objectified, but I must admit that I have sometimes found myself clicking through and admiring all those impressively sexy butts as well…

…and of course wishing that my butt looked half as good! I’m sure I can’t be the only one who does this (or am I?). Hmm, maybe I should keep these kind of comments under my hat.

So I decided to do some research, and find out exactly how to get a yoga butt. I’m telling you, these things can be built people, it just takes a bit of hard work and sweat.

yoga-butt
photo credit: Kukhahn Yoga via photopin cc

What is a yoga butt and why will you want one? A yoga butt is the ultimate butt. It makes guy’s jaws drop, and girls green with envy. Think high, tight, toned, sculpted and shaped – a yoga butt is all of these things and more, it’s the pinnacle of strength, sexiness and perfection all rolled into one. Not bad huh? Want one now? Me too.

What Makes Yoga Butts So Sexy?

Probably the yoga pants… but to look good in yoga pants, you first need to have a nice butt. And to get a nice butt – the precursor to a yoga butt – you’ll need to shape up your booty with exercise.

Yoga butts look awesome because they are usually found on those who practice a lot of yoga (makes sense), and yoga creates awesome bodies.

Yoga Workouts Create Strong Bodies

Yoga poses are a great training option that can really challenge your body and help you tone up, lose weight, de-stress, and improve your balance, posture, strength and flexibility. It really has a range of positive health benefits, which is why it is becoming more and more popular in the health and fitness scene.

Basically, if you decide to take up and stick with yoga, in addition to getting a nice butt you’re probably gonna get a nicer body overall too!

The Spiritual Origins of Yoga are Vastly Different to the Practice Today

Defining a yoga butt was easy, but defining the term ‘yoga’ is not. Yoga originated as a Hindu spiritual discipline and the term has been around for thousands of years, over that time diversifying and evolving into different practices, styles and traditions – so it is almost impossible to define what exactly the practice is today.

The word yoga itself is a Sanskrit word which means ‘union’, and this is thought to refer to the union between the body, the mind and the spirit. This is usually achieved through meditation, or more commonly in the western world, the practice of adopting certain body postures to assist in clearing the mind and unifying the self.

Yoga in Popular Culture

The popularity of yoga as a practice has seen an increase in popularity and publicity over the past decade in the western world, with many different yoga classes offered at gyms, health clubs, and by independent yoga studios.

Today in the western world, yoga is primarily promoted and practiced as a healthy physical exercise, and not as the heavily spiritual discipline from which it originated so long ago.

This is not a bad thing, merely something to be aware of. If you take any yoga class today, you’ll find that the practice is still taught with some references to its ancient origins, but in terms of physical challenge, the best part about it is probably the focus on your breath and movement of the breath with the body as you step through a series of poses or asanas.

There are many different styles of yoga and some may be more dynamic than others and will have you constantly transitioning from one pose to the next in a fluid motion, moving with the breath.

Then there are others in which you will adopt a pose and remain in the pose, at the same time seeking that union between mind body and spirit, and focusing on good form and breathing.

From a physical point of view, yoga is an excellent workout purely because it focuses heavily on control of your body, and deliberate movements and poses which result in increased stability, strength and flexibility – all qualities which make for strong, healthy muscles and a physique that looks absolutely amazing.

Yoga Creates Strong and Sexy Butts

So what makes yoga different to any other exercise or workout routine, and why would it benefit your butt any more than those?

Any form of exercise that targets the glutes is going to give you a stronger and sexier butt, however yoga is particularly suited for building lean and tight glutes because of the isolation and specific focus on good form that is central to its practice.

Awesome yoga butt
Photo credit: Girls in Yoga Pants. Used with permission.

 

Anyone can go and bust out a huge set of walking lunges, squats or deadlifts with sloppy form, but just because these are the so-called elite of butt building exercises, doesn’t mean they will always be effective at sculpting a nicer butt.

If you are not activating and recruiting the glute muscles effectively throughout your movements, then you can exercise as much as you like but you won’t get that beautiful, tight, sculpted butt that you want.

Unfortunately, this is the case for all too many people. They try to do butt exercises, hoping to build stronger glutes, but really they end up strengthening other muscles in the area like the hamstrings, back and quadriceps – and the glute remains underworked.

Yoga can be a great way to slow down, breathe, and really concentrate on activating the glute muscles during exercise to re-awaken them, and this is the secret behind the reason why yoga creates awesome butts.

Don’t get me wrong, you can definitely create a great looking butt through traditional bodyweight exercises and weight lifting exercises, but it requires that initial concentration to make sure you are doing the exercises correctly and actually targeting the glutes.

The Specific Type of Yoga Moves that Will Get You a Yoga Butt

Shavasana yoga pose
Savasana probably won’t build you an awesome butt.  photo credit: dejahthoris via photopin cc (cropped)

Okay, so you’ve started yoga under the promise of getting an awesome yoga butt, but you haven’t seen any results! Why not?

You can’t just expect to practice yoga and wake up the next day with a nice butt (though that would be nice!). Yoga classes have many different approaches, and there are many different yoga poses, and only some of them actually target the butt. You wouldn’t expect to get a nice butt from a pose like Savasana for example!

A lot of yoga poses involve the whole body, but if you want to yoga build a nice butt, then you’ll need to take a more focused approach. This is precisely why I put together a list of the best yoga poses for the butt.

Another trap that can be easy to fall into when practicing yoga to get a better butt is that it can be difficult to practice progressive overload. Once you’ve mastered the basics of glute activation through the best yoga butt poses, If you don’t increase the difficulty of your workouts, you’ll never improve beyond a certain point.

Yoga Butt Workout

This yoga workout is heavily glute focused and all of the poses work the butt in some form or another. Focus on perfect form and concentrate on activating the glute muscles throughout each pose.

Warmup

Warmup by performing several sun salutations to loosen up the body and prepare for your yoga workout.

Try performing the following poses, holding each pose for 5 deep, slow breaths.

Chair Pose (Utkatasana)

Reverse Table Pose (Ardha Purvottanasana)

Garland Pose (Malasana)

Twisted Chair Pose (Parivrtta Utkatasana)  – 5 deep breaths on each side.

Upward Plank Pose (Purvottanasana)

Right side:

Start with Cresent Lunge Pose (Anjaneyasana) to open the right hip flexor – step your left leg forward and have it as your bent leg for this pose.

Warrior III/Balancing Stick Pose (Virabhadrasana III/Tuladandasana) – Balance on your left leg, bringing your right leg in the air.

King Dancer/Standing Pulling Bow Pose (Natarajasana/Dandayamana Dhanurasana) – Balance on your left leg, bringing your right leg in the air.

Half Moon Pose (Ardha Chandrasana) – Stay balanced on your left leg, bringing your right leg in the air.

Three Legged Downward Dog (Tri Pada Adho Mukha Svanasana) – Again, right leg raised in the air.

Extended Side Angle Pose (Utthita Parsvakonasana)  – Bring your right leg through from downward dog and have it as your bent leg for this pose.

Revolved Side Angle Pose (Parivrtta Parsvakonasana)

Side plank (Vasisthasana)  – Transition back to plank from the side angle pose, and rotate to your left, so your right hip is upwards.

Easy/Cross-legged Pose with Forward Fold (Adho Mukha Sukhasana) – right leg crossed over left to stretch into the right side of the glutes.

Left side:

Again, start with Cresent Lunge Pose to open the left hip flexor this time – step your right leg forward and have it as your bent leg for this pose.

Warrior III/Balancing Stick Pose  – Balance on your right leg, bringing your left leg in the air.

King Dancer/Standing Pulling Bow Pose – Balance on your right leg, bringing your left leg in the air.

Half Moon Pose – Stay balanced on your right leg, bringing your left leg in the air.

Three Legged Downward Dog – Left leg raised in the air.

Extended Side Angle Pose  – Bring theleft leg through from downward dog and have it as your bent leg for this pose.

Revolved Side Angle Pose 

Side plank   – Transition back to plank from the side angle pose, and rotate to your right, so your left hip is upwards.

Easy/Cross-legged Pose with Forward Fold – left leg crossed over right to stretch into the left side of the glutes.

Transition to the floor, lying facedown your mat.

Full Locust Pose (Poorna Salabhasana)

Child’s Pose (Balasana)

Bow Pose (Dhanurasana)

Child’s Pose (Balasana)

Bridge Pose (Setu Bandhasana/Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)

Cooldown

Pigeon Pose (Kapotanasana) – repeat for both sides

Eye of the Needle Pose (Sucirandhrasana) – repeat for both sides

Corpse Pose (Savasana)

Practicing Yoga Will Help You Get a Nicer Butt

There’s no doubt you’ll get a better butt through practicing the right kind of yoga moves, but you can also fast-track your progress by moving to a weight training program. If you’re new to weight training then I recommend you read the book ‘Strong Curves: A Woman’s Guide to Building a Better Butt and Body‘ by Bret Contreras and Kellie Davis – click through to check out my Strong Curves review.

Let me know how you found the yoga butt workout for your glutes, did you enjoy it or was it too challenging?

How To Get a Yoga Butt – Including the Best Ever Yoga Butt Workout!
Tagged on:     

10 thoughts on “How To Get a Yoga Butt – Including the Best Ever Yoga Butt Workout!

  • November 29, 2014 at 1:34 pm
    Permalink

    I love Yoga! I have been practicing it for a while now, even when I don’t have time for a workout that day i start my mornings with a few slow morning sunrises to wake me up. I am always looking for new poses and ways to increase the difficulty. Bookmarked the page. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
    • November 29, 2014 at 1:40 pm
      Permalink

      It’s a great habit to get into and there’s not much that leaves you feeling better than a good yoga workout to start your day off! Thanks for your comment Sarah!

      Reply
  • November 29, 2014 at 1:40 pm
    Permalink

    I’d never associated yoga with better butts, more with meditation and spiritual culture. You are right of course, people who practise yoga have great butts! What you’ve done is make it interesting and provided exercises to help make it happen. 🙂

    Reply
    • November 29, 2014 at 2:10 pm
      Permalink

      Thanks Kathy, it is true that yoga seems to be going away from meditation and spirituality over here in the western world, and starting to become more of a physical-based practice. I know I’ve mostly focused on the physical aspects in this post, but yoga provides are great benefits for the mind and spirit as well – I did not mean to down-play this side of it!

      Reply
    • October 28, 2018 at 10:32 pm
      Permalink

      Yeaaaah…..I think you’re missing the entire point of yoga. What you describe, this ego-fueled ridiculous pursuit of “achieving” a great butt is the antithesis of yoga. This is why I do Ashtanga with a KPJAYI-authorized teacher, with 20+ years practice under her belt. I really hate the Yoga Alliance just because of this kind of toxic mentality and culture it has created.

      Reply
      • October 30, 2018 at 3:09 pm
        Permalink

        Hey Blossom, I have been practicing yoga for the few years since I wrote this post and yes, I can totally see where you’re coming from with this comment! I think it’s crazy what you discover about the spiritual/non-material side of yoga after you practice it for a while. It’s definitely not all about getting a great butt for me anymore (not that I think it ever really was – that’s just a potential side benefit hahaha).

        Reply
  • November 29, 2014 at 8:01 pm
    Permalink

    This is a lot of great information about how yoga can be beneficial! I wasn’t aware of a lot of these things thanks for sharing!

    Reply
    • November 30, 2014 at 1:12 am
      Permalink

      It’s a great practice to incorporate into your routine, for both guys and gals! I hope you might even consider giving it a go sometime!

      Reply
  • June 18, 2019 at 7:56 am
    Permalink

    Great blog, nice content, good read and informative. Learn a lot today.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Jared Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I accept the Privacy Policy