A few exercises for a superior posterior

Here are some more tips from fitness experts on the best ways to tone your backside.

Dana Prieto, group exercise manager at the Sports Club/LA in Beverly Hills, favors traditional squats, walking lunges, step-ups and quadruped hip extensions. She recommends doing them a couple of days a week, leaving time in between to recover.

A typical regimen for women would be three sets of 15 to 20 repetitions of each exercise, she says.

For men, she recommends three sets of 10 to 15 repetitions, holding dumbbells.

Prieto stresses the importance of proper alignment and posture.

“Keep your chest up, and make sure your knees don’t go over your toes for lunges and squats,” she says.

David Brainin, a trainer at Crunch Fitness in Los Angeles, recommends a series of multi-directional lunges -- lunging ahead and to the left and right. This exercise targets both the gluteus maximus and the gluteus medius.

But Brainin stresses that all the lunges and squats in the world won’t help your derriere if you don’t stretch the hip flexor muscles (in the groin area), which offer resistance to the glutes.

“Hip flexors are tight in most people,” he says. “Stretching the hip flexors intensifies glute exercise.”

Want to know if your hip flexors are too tight? Your feet will tend to turn out, duck-like, when performing the glute exercises.

John Porcari of the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, has a favorite glute workout that he didn’t include in his recent study.

He recommends performing squats with a Swiss ball placed between one’s back and the wall, somewhat like a bear rubbing up against a tree. To heighten the effect, he suggests holding dumbbells while doing the exercise.

All the experts emphasize that, when exercising, you should let pain be your guide. If any of the moves hurt your knees or back, back off.

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-- Janet Cromley