No one wants to feel their thighs rub together or wonder if their backside looks good in a new pair of pants. Eliminate any distress over hip size by toning the hips with resistance training exercises. A nutritionist or physician can guide you with cutting calories if you are overweight, but hip-targeting exercises will target the buttocks, inner thighs and outer thighs.
Barbell High Back Squat
The barbell high back squat is a free weight exercise that uses a barbell for resistance. The inner thighs, called the adductors, and the glutes are the hips muscles working during this exercise. To perform this exercise, rest a barbell centered high on your upper back and hold it with your arms bent and palms facing forwards. Bend your knees and hinge your hips backwards as your upper body hinges slightly forwards as you squat, then press your legs straight again using your glutes. The lower back, quads and hamstrings tone as well. Even the abs assist for this exercise. The barbell high back squat firms up the area all around the hips and waist.
Hip Shaper
The hip shaper exercise works your inner and outer thighs. It is also an effective balance exercise that starts out in the classic yoga tree pose. To perform this exercise, stand on your left leg with the sole of your right foot against your left inner thigh or shin with the right knee bent and hip open. Start with the knee pointing to the right, then swing your right knee left and kick your leg across your body. Place the right foot back on the thigh or shin and return to the starting position. Repeat on the other leg. Holding the abs in tight makes balancing easier in this pose.
Woodchop Plie
The woodchop plie exercises all of the hip muscles including the glutes, inner thighs and outer thighs, and slims arms too. To perform this exercise, stand with your feet together and hold dumbbells in each hand with your hands above your left shoulder, palms together and elbows bent. Then, step out to the right and lower into a squat with your toes pointing outwards and your knees coming just over your toes. At the same time, swing your arms with control diagonally down across your body toward your right knee, straightening your arms. Return to start and repeat in the other direction. This exercise combines the popular lower body exercise, the plie squat, with the core exercise called woodchops.
Slimmer Hip Plan
Resistance training exercises either tone the muscles and increase endurance, make muscles significantly stronger or increase their size. The specific exercise does not determine the results so much as the exercise plan. To slim your hips, start with a repetition range of 10 to 15 reps. Work up to three sets of exercises on three days per week.
References
- "NASM Essentials of Personal Fitness Training: Course Manual"; Michael Clark, Scott Lucett, Rodney Corn; 2008
- American Council on Exercise: Barbell High Back Squat
- Fitness: Hip Shaper (video)
- Fitness: Woodchop Plie (video)
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