Everyone is concerned about the size, shape and firmness of their backside. You can call it your booty, behind, rear end, or butt, whatever you choose. Pumping up the booty is important to looking great in those stretched tight skinny jeans, booty shorts, and of course that bathing suit. That’s where the following three lower body exercises come into the picture.

1. Lunges

This is one of the best lower body exercises because it really focuses on toning and firming up the rear end. It is best to do walking lunges, but static lunges can be effective if you don’t have the room. Static lunges with weights are great for creating more muscle mass.

Walking lunges. Make sure to hold your core muscles tight as you bring one leg out in front of your body and dip the back knee down toward the ground.

If you do walking lunges you will come up from the lunge position and swing the back leg out in front of the body to lunge down again. It is like a walking motion but with very large steps and a dip down between leg transfers.

If you are looking for ways to work the booty in less time, this is one of the best lower body exercises to perform during a cardio interval workout. You can stop and do some walking lunges while jogging, walking on the treadmill or on the exercise bike etc. If you’re doing interval training don’t forget to include upper body exercises as well.

You can also do backward or reverse lunges to hit the buttocks from another angle, lunges are one of the more versatile lower body exercises.

2. Step Ups

Standing in front of your step or bench, start with your right foot first stepping up onto the step or bench, bringing your left foot up behind you, making sure that both of your feet are securely on the bench at the top of the movement.

Now lower your right foot down again, followed by your left foot. Now swap feet starting with your left foot up first, followed by your right foot and so on. Alternating from one leg to the other.

Don’t stomp your feet when stepping up and down. Keep it soft and control your movement up and down, don’t just let yourself drop back down to the floor.

You can either step up onto the step or bench and lower yourself down, making sure that it’s extremely stable and not going to topple over, or start at the top and lower yourself down and then step back up again.

3. Squats

This is another one of the more versatile lower body exercises. You can do a simple squat motion with your legs positioned about shoulder width apart and your arms at your sides. Squat down, like you’re going to sit, pushing your butt out behind you so your body weight is on your heels, not your toes. Come back up, pulling the buttocks in and squeezing before going back down.

You can also do many different modifications of the squat to target your butt in different ways while toning the other muscles of the lower body as well. Try squatting with your legs together, very wide apart (sumo squats), and then try small squats with one leg lifted from the floor. You can also do pulses where you stay down at the bottom of the motion and slightly pulse up and down for a few counts before returning to full movement.

All of these lower body exercises can be performed wherever and whenever you choose. Just focus on good posture and stabilizing the body from your core. Correct technique will help prevent injuries and assist with an effective workout.