Girls with some of the most buff butts on Instagram have been seen doing an exercise that doesn’t actually work better than squats but sure looks good in videos. It’s a special way to use the gym’s hip abductor machine, the one where you sit with a cushion positioned against each outer thigh and spread your legs to engage the hips, butt, and outer thighs.
Now, while you can always add extra weight to increase the resistance and pump up the challenge, Instagrammers have been taking the movement a step further by holding on to the outer casing of the weight column (or back of the seat on machines where the weight column is positioned off to one side). They press into their heels, lift their booties out of the seat, and then perform the movement. For those who film their workouts to post on Instagram, this positioning offers an A+ angle that shows off the booty, but experts say that’s about the only benefit.
While this move isn’t overtly dangerous or harmful, according to exercise physiologist and American Council on Exercise (ACE)-certified personal trainer Pete McCall it’s not particularly useful. Despite the myth that it challenges stability to engage the butt muscles better than doing the movement while sitting down: “It creates the perception of working harder but it’s not really that effective,” he says.
-source via cosmopolitan.com
