Best Butt Exercises: Squat-Arabesque

This weeks Best Butt Exercises booty blasting move works your butt with two different moves performed together to make up one repetition.

It’s called the squat-arabesque, and it’s a great move for attacking those glutes from two different angles. You can do this one at home without equipment, but if you find it too easy without, it’s easy enough to add weights to create resistance. Just another exercise that I’ve picked up from the Brazil Butt Lift program that I though I would share with you!

I’m sure you’ve heard of the squat before, which in itself is an excellent compound exercise that largely targets the butt as well as other muscles in the legs including hamstrings and quadriceps.

The arabesque is a bit less well-known. It’s named after a ballet move, but the exercise we’ll be performing today is slightly different.

In ballet, an arabesque is a one-legged balancing move where one leg is lifted behind the body with the foot rotated outwards. This move involves the glutes, hip flexors, hamstrings and core.

 

We’ll adapt the arabesque slightly to target the glutes more, by focusing less on the external rotation of the foot and more on recruiting the glutes during the move.

Exercise: Squat -Arabesque
Muscles worked: Glutes, Thighs, Core and balance
Jolie Recommends: Try 3 sets of 30 reps.
Difficulty rating: 3
Effectiveness rating: 6

You perform a bodyweight squat and upon completion of the squat, from the standing position go right into a one legged-arabesque. This is one rep. Then repeat the squat, and follow it up with an arabesque on the other leg to balance it out.

This combination is great because it keeps the glute muscles working from a few different angles.

The squat, if performed slowly and under control with a strong focus on recruiting the glute muscle, works to pre-fatigue the glutes. Following it up immediately with the arabesque gives a more effective exercise that will work the glutes better than just doing plain squats or arabesque exercises independently.

Best Butt Exercise #11: Squat-Arabesque

Leandro himself (creator of Brazil Butt Lift) walks you through how to do this move in this video:

How to Do the Move

1. Start standing with feet approximately shoulder width apart, feet pointing forwards.
2. While contracting your glutes, slowly sit your butt down and back into a bodyweight squat, lowering slowly for about 2-3 seconds under control.
3. Slowly stand back up from the squat, again with control and taking about 2-3 seconds to rise up from the squat.
4. As you rise up out of the squat, shift your balance to your left leg and lift your right leg straight back behind you by using your right glute. Lean your upper torso slightly forward and reach forward with both arms to enable you to complete the move, but keeep the core tight.
5. Lower your right leg to return to the standing position.
6. Steps 1-5 count as one rep, and you can now complete the same exercise on the other side.

I like to perform the squat slow and controlled, all the time while concentrating on squeezing the glutes hard – this makes your glutes do most of the work in the squat instead of having the quadriceps take over.

Perfecting Your Form

• Keep the back straight while doing the squat, don’t let it round over forwards.
• Keep your core tight and back straight when doing the arabesque, don’t let your back arch excessively.
• Ensure you keep your hips in-line and square to the front when doing the arabesque.
• Use your glutes to lift the leg in arabesque. It’s possible to perform this move by using other muscles, so really focus on recruiting and using the glutes.
• Give an extra squeeze of the glutes at the top of the arabesque, and hold the contraction for a moment with your leg at the top to really feel it.

Reppin’ It

Try performing 30 reps for 3 sets of this exercise.
As this is a bodyweight exercise, you’ll find you’ll be able to do more reps without too much difficulty.

Step it up a notch by using ankle weights or a resistance band to make the arabesque more difficult, and holding a pair of dumbbells to add resistance with the squat. Adjust the reps accordingly to suit the weight you are using (less reps with more weight).