Booty Busting Multitasker: The Skater Exercise

Do you want to look amazing in shorts or get a bikini ready booty? Maybe you are looking to increase your performance and lower body strength while avoiding injuries. Either way, simply doing cardio in hopes of gorgeous gams won’t get you the results you want. To tone up, you must add resistance exercises like the skater exercise to your workout routine.

This powerful lower body buster tones your legs and glutes while still giving you the option to staying low impact. The versatile skater provides a killer calorie burn while giving you a dose offunctional fitness that helps you build your agility and balance. Adding the skater into your routine maximizes results while minimizing impact on your body.

A study done by Penn State researchers shows that people who added resistance training to their diet and exercise routine lose more weight than those who don’t. So even if you are just looking to shed a few pounds, the skater is a vital exercise to add to your routine. Since the skater helps tone several major muscle groups in your lower body including the glutes, the largest muscle in the body. Working these large muscles helps speed up your metabolism, making you burn more calories. This makes it easier for weight loss to happen.

How to do the Skater Exercise

Doing this dynamic exercise is easy. Just follow the instructions below and begin sculpting the toned legs and glutes of your dreams. Then wear your shorts or skinny jeans with confidence and pride.

1. Warm up and stretch.
2. Lean forward, keeping your back flat.
3. Leap to the right, bring your left foot behind you and your left arm in front of you.
4. Bend your knee so you are in a single leg squat on your right side.
5. Leap from the bent right leg onto your left leg, bringing your right leg behind you and your right arm forward.
6. Bend your left leg to get into a deep single leg squat on your left.
7. Keep repeating until you reach your desired number of reps.                                             The Skater: A Demo                                                           For an in depth demonstration of how to do the skater exercise check out the video below. Be sure to pay attention to her form and try to replicate it when you do the exercise on your own. Tips and Tricks to doing the Skater Exercise
   It’s not enough just to do the skater exercise. Make sure you get the most out of your skater exercise by following these suggestions.
   • Watch your form. As with many other exercises, good form is crucial to getting the maximum results while avoiding injury.
   • Keep your back flat. Keeping your back flat and leaning forward will engage your abs and help whittle your waistline.
   • Bend your knees! Be sure to get as deep into your squat as you can to fully engage your glutes, hamstrings, and quads.
   • Keep your knees over your toes. If your knees go too far over your toes in your squat, you riskinjury to your knees.
   • Do enough reps of the exercise to get results. According to certified nutritionist and cycling coach Levi Bloom, the rule of thumb for body weight exercises is to throw the towel in when you can no longer maintain proper form. If you find yourself getting fatigued after only a few reps, break down the exercise into sets. To do one set of 10 reps, then rest or do a different exercise. Then repeat the set. This way you will make maximum gains.
   • Don’t be afraid to modify the exercise. If you find yourself unable to complete more than a few reps with good form or are coming back from an injury make the exercise easier for yourself. If it’s too easy, add intensity to get better results.
   How to Modify the Skater Exercise
   Sometimes the best course of action may be to modify certain exercises including the skater. If you are recovering from an injury or an illness or are a workout newbie, beginning with an easier version of the skater may be for you. If you have been working out for awhile and looking to challenge yourself even more, then modifying the skater exercise to make it more difficult may be the right choice for you.
   To Make Skater Easier
   • Don’t jump from side to side. Instead step from side to side, maintaining your flat back and deep single leg squat.
   • Use the back of a chair for balance. If you are struggling to maintain balance, keeping your hand on the chair back can help you stabilize yourself.
   • Slow down the tempo. If you find yourself out of breath too easily, then just take your time with the exercise. You want to keep your heart rate in the target heart rate zone, however you don’t want to go over the zone especially if you are a true beginner.
   To Make Skater Harder
   • Cover more ground. Leap further when you jump. Covering more ground challenges your muscles more. To make sure you jump as far as you can, measure a goal distance with a yardstick. Put a piece of tape on either end to mark the distance and aim to jump from mark to mark.
   • Add extra resistance. Try doing the exercise while wearing a pair of ankle weights or holding a set of light dumbbells.
   • Challenge your balance by keeping your back leg off the ground.
   • Pick up the pace. Going faster will get your heart pumping and boost your calorie burn.
   • Add a leg lift. After you leap from the first side to the second side, take your back leg and raise it up while lowering your torso so that you make a straight line balanced on one leg. This will challenge your balance even more and give your booty an extra lift.
   Benefits of the Skater Exercise
   Adding the skater exercise into your workout routine is a solid decision. Not only is the skater is a unique exercise that gives you both a cardiovascular and resistance workout but it forces you to work on agility and balance as well. Because the workout is so dynamic, you will reap many benefits from adding this to your workout.
   Though it primarily targets the muscles in the leg, the skater works more than just the muscles in your legs. The skater hits the following muscles:
   • Quadriceps- the large muscles on the front of your thighs
   • Gastrocnemius- the chief calf muscle
   • Soleus- another muscle in the calf
   • Gluteus maximus- the largest muscle in the buttocks that is the main muscle responsible for hip movement
   • Hamstrings- the large muscles on the back of your thighs
   • Rectus abdominis- the “6 pack” muscles in your abs
   • Transverse abdominis- the deep muscle under your abs
   Exercises to do with the Skater Exercise
   It’s not enough to only do one kind of exercise to tone up your lower body. Aside from doing at least 30 minutes of cardio exercise 5 days a week as the American Heart Association suggests, maximize your results by doing resistance routines at least 3 days per week for women and at least 3 days a week but potentially more for men.
   When you do the skater exercise, you may work this versatile move in as part of your cardio, core, or leg routine. Read on to find a breakdown of recommended routines for each. Do each move for a minute and repeat the circuit 3 to 4 times.
   Cardio Resistance with Skater
   • Warm up by jogging in place
   • Run in place
   • Mountain climber
   • Seal Jacks
   • Push up Jacks
   • Skater Jumps
   • Plank to Push Up
   Lower Body Routine with Skater
   • Warm up by jogging in place
   • Wall Sit
   • Lunge
   • Side lunge
   • Sumo Squats
   • Skater
   • Calf Raise
   Core Cardio Routine with Skater
   • Warm up by jogging in place
   • High knee marches with trunk twists
   • Mountain Climbers
   • Skaters
   • Suicide Runs
   • Plank runs
   • Push up jacks
   What Should I Do After my Skater Workout?
   After all of these routines, be sure to give yourself a few minutes to cool down and stretch the muscles you just worked. Stretching will help ease post workout soreness and lengthen the muscles that you just trained. To stretch out after attacking your lower body with the skater try these stretches for your legs and hips:
   • Standing quad stretch
   • Seated toe touch stretch
   • Pigeon stretch
   • Wall or curb calf stretch

• Tweet
• Share
• Share
• Share
• Share