Oh! Gwyneth Paltrow gorgeous

After Hrs trains the eyes on the gluteus maximus and exercises that can help transform it to gluteus gorgeous

Now, Gwyneth Paltrow may have humblebragged about her ‘22-year-old stripper butt’ at the launch of her trainer, Tracy Anderson’s Fitness studio in LA. While the 38-year-old actress might have said that in jest, her comment just brought back all the attention to the gluteus maximus and how working it can ace one’s sexiness quotient like nothing else can.

Gwyneth went further to acknowledge her shapely posterior to Tracy Anderson’s 30-Day method workout that involves doing jazzy leaps, star jumps and aerobic moves, basically exercises that are not repetitive like running, for two hours a day, six days a week along with a diet that could leave you exhausted merely reading it (who said looking good was ever easy).

 While we are no pushovers for staying fit, the temptation to have a good back set us looking for easy and effective exercises and here’s what we found:

THE YOGA WAY
Of course there are asanas that one can do to get a shapely posterior. Yoga gurus Deepa Kannan and Shyam Nair of Yogasopanam list out exercises that are effective and not that complicated. “There are various versions of squats in yoga that can be done to give the glutes a good workout,” says Deepa. Utkatasana, Vayu Nishkasana, Kakasana, Dhanurasana and the Suptavajrasana are exercises that stretch the gluteus muscle and work effectively in shaping it up.

I. Utkatasana Also called the chair pose; to do it:
1.    Stand with legs about a foot apart.

2.    Slowly bend the knees and hips as if you were sitting down.

3.    Once you get to a comfortable position, push your back straight so that you can feel the force exerting on the thighs and legs. Hold the position for as long as you are comfortable.

4.    Stretch your hands to the front.

5. Breathe relaxedly throughout.

Tip: If you are a beginner, you can do the exercise using the wall as support. The exercise strengthens the legs, thighs, back and the abdomen.

II. Dhanurasana The bow pose; to do it:
1.    Lie flat on your stomach

2.    Bend your legs upwards. Next, hold the ankles with your hands and pull the legs up, such that the body resembles a bow

3.    The exercise strengthens arms, legs, the spine even as it works for a shapely rear.

III. Suptavajrasana The sleeping thunderbolt pose; to do it:
1.    Sit on your heels with calves beneath the thighs (the vajrasana)

2.    Maintaining the vajrasana, slowly fall till you are lying down on your back.

   Tip: If you are a beginner, place your elbows on the ground first and with their support, slowly push your head and back to the floor.

3.    Maintain the pose — the head and legs touching the floor while the back is arched for as long as you are comfortable.

4.    You may leave your hands lying on the thighs.

5.    Breathe deeply.

6.    While releasing from the pose, take the support of the elbows to lift the head, then slowly release your legs one by one and come back to vajrasana.

Deepa adds, “Doing yoga for 15 minutes every day is more effective than doing yoga for an hour for two days in a week.” And the slower you do the asana the more effective it is. In doing static asanas like Utkatasana, the longer you hold the pose the better it is. But also remember that you’ve got to breathe in deeply as the more oxygen you intake, the faster your metabolism gets.

THE PILATES WAY
If a penny were to be counted each time a celebrity mentioned Pilates, we would all be millionaires. Says Pilates instructor Anjali Sareen, “Pilates is a form of exercise that focuses on the core muscles of the body which includes the hips and thighs. In fact some of the best-known butts world-wide namely that of Pippa Middleton, Jennifer Lopez and more are all attributed to Pilates!”

Talking about workouts for the back, she says, “Specific exercises and routines on specialised Pilates equipment such as the Reformer, Stability Chair and Cadillac address the ‘droopy butt’ syndrome, which is faced by women everywhere including India. Done regularly one can see results within three to four weeks because of the specific focus and precise exercises and movement patterns. In fact, we have seen great results in teenagers, women getting ready to get married and new mothers, who all have tighter derriers to boast of after our pilates program.”

THE GYM WAY
“It is a myth that Indian women have a heavier back,” says Niran Ponnappa, fitness manager at Fitness First, before he gets down to sharing the one exercise he thinks will do the magic: “Assisted pull ups, twice a week, is one exercise that according to me is the best to start with, complemented by rowing. One can start seeing visible differences in a month and a vast difference in 3 months.”

THE RUNNER’S WAY
Getting a shapely derrier is really about toning the glute muscles. Chandra Gopalan, owner of Contours Gym, recommends running because, “you are exerting your glutes throughout.” Besides that, the work-out that gets her nod is the squat. Most people do squats quite casually, under the mistaken assumption that its bets for shaping legs. While in reality, squats are a great work out for the posterior because the squats exert the entire pelvic region, the legs and the glutes.

While there’s no particular diet to be followed, Chandra states that “doing cardio exercises only ensure that you lose weight. To get in shape, however, you need to tone your muscles. And instead of using weights, she exhorts, using “one’s own body weight as resistance during exercises. The results you get can be amazing.”