10 Minute Solution: Butt Lift

I have purchased another 10 Minute Solution! I can’t believe I had forgotten about these workouts. They are such neat little gems. I am digging out some of my older ones to use as add-ons again, so I will be reviewing a few more of these in the future. I was inspired to purchased Butt Lift for two reasons. The first was that I was in the middle of Cathe‘s Rock Bottoms rotation, so more bottom workouts seemed like a good idea. The other reason is, I had just tried 10 Minute Solutions new High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) collection and loved it! So I was hoping this one would be just as good. And it is–another winner!

Here is how 10 Minute Solution DVDs work. Every 10 Minute Solution DVD comes with five 10 minute workouts. The workouts are programmable so you can just do one workout, or build a workout so that they play one right after the other. Say, for instance, you want a 30 minute workout; you just program 3 of them so they play straight through, one right after the other. You can also mix and match–so you can put them together in any order that suits you. In addition, they all have a selection where you can play all 5 straight through for a 50 minute workout.

Butt Lift however has a bonus that the other 10 Minute Solution workouts that I own do not have. It has the five 10 minute lower body workouts but it also has a 6th 10 minute workout–a core workout. Pretty neat! So if you want a full hour, you can get it with this DVD. And of course, any variation you chose to create you can end with ab work if you choose.

The trainer for this workout is a female named Christine Bullock. I really liked her. She is very personable and leads well. She doesn’t given many lower intensity/beginner modifications but she does give a few advanced modifications. And just like their High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) collection, this one is tougher than you’d expect. Butt Lift contains two butt workouts that are also cardio–Cardio Booty Camp and HIIT Butt Lift. They are the only two workouts that have a warm up. All the others just jump right into the workouts. All of the workouts, however, end with a brief stretch. When I sampled these workouts I programmed them as two 30 minute workouts that started with cardio. I absolutely love the ability to do this. All of the segments are structured the same except for HIIT Butt Lift. So I will give the breakdown for the way they are all structured here, but HIIT Butt Lift will be explained under its review.

Each workout (except for HIIT Butt Lift) consists of 2 sets of 5 exercises, and each exercise is done for 45 seconds. You will do all 5 exercises on one side of the body, have a brief stretch then do all of the exercises on the other side of the body and end with a longer stretch. Your actual training time for all of the workouts is a little more than 9 minutes. She probably uses 45 seconds for stretching. Again, this is a bit different in the two cardio workouts. BTW–Amazing Abs was very, very challenging! How will I use this DVD? In lots of different ways, I think, but the main way will be add ons–primarily the cardio ones. I’ll tack them on after or before a strength workout when I need to round out my workout time to an hour. But I like these so much that I will probably sometimes use them as doubles workouts, too–creating a 30-40 minute workout that starts with cardio, works my booty and then (when I do it for 40 minutes) ends with core work.

Butt Lift: No warm up; 1. around the world lunges (side lunge, back diagonal lunge and rear lunge); 2. kneeling karate kicks (get on all 4s and kick leg to side); 3. frog press (get on belly and open knees/thighs while while pressing soles of feet together, then lift thighs/knees/feet); 4. lay on back, raise one leg and hips and do single leg bridge; 5. lunge lift (step back into crescent lunge with hands/arms overhead, bend and put hands on floor and lift back leg in air, bring knee to chest then out and back into crescent). Repeat all 5 on other side of body. Stretch.

Cardio Booty Camp: Warm up is running butt kicks; 1. warrior lunge (lift up/forward lifting back leg out straight behind you then back down into lunge); 2. 3 side step lunges then side kick; 3. plank jacks (5 plank jacks, lift one leg up while pushing back into one leg down dog); 4. squat tap jacks (squat, tap back with one leg 5 times then do 5 squat jacks); 5. curtsey lunge into side kick. Repeat all 5 on other side of body. Stretch.

Upright Booty: No warm up; 1. staggered squat twist (feet hip distance apart, one foot further back than the other and hands behind head; squat and lift the knee that is further back, twisting opposite elbow to knee); 2. Charlie’s Angels lunge (hands clasped together like a gun with arms held straight in front of you; lunge forward and twist clasped hands/arms to the side of the working leg then reverse lunge on same leg); 3. circle squats (press hips to side, down into squat then to other side); 4. side lunge crunch (hands behind head, side lunge then push up, bending and raising knee to elbow); 5. curtsey kicks (5 static lunges then fall forward, place hands on ground and lift back leg in air, doing 5 leg lifts). Repeat all 5 exercises on other side of body. Stretch.

Butt and Thighs: No warm up; 1. side lunge crossover (side lunge then push to standing and cross working leg over non-working leg–keep leg straight and point toe); 2. thigh fall (get on knees, arms out in front of you and lower/lean back, keeping spine straight then raise back to starting position–your hamstrings, glutes and core are working to bring bring you forward and back); 3. kneeling side kicks (still on knees, plant one palm on floor beside you and bring opposite leg out straight to side while kneeling on one bent knee; lift and lower leg to side); 4. pretzel kicks (while seated on the ground bring one leg in front of you, knee bent, and leg behind you, knee also bent; lift and lower back leg while still bend–very challenging exercise, you will feel it from your leg and up your back); 5. standing leg circles (stand up and hold arms out to side, lift one leg out straight behind you and lift the leg 5 times then sweep it forward, to the side and back behind you). Repeat all 5 exercises on other side of body. Stretch.

HIIT Butt Lift: HIIT Butt lift is structured differently than all of the other workouts on this DVD. First, the HIITs are done tabata style, but not the normal tabata style (see 10 Minute Solution High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) for their way of doing tabata and how it differs from traditional tabata). You do 20 seconds of high intensity work followed by 10 seconds of recovery. You do 8 exercises that you repeat for a total of 16 HIIT/tabatas. Your 10 second recovery isn’t a normal recovery either. During the 10 seconds between HIITs you hold a static squat. The warm up is jump ropes; 1. lateral plyo squat; repeat; 2. scissor jumps (jump/plyo lunges); repeat; 3. power plie (plie jump in and out); repeat; 4. deep lateral lunge and push off doing a circle kick in and back out to lateral lunge; repeat on other side; 5. burpee lunge (squat thrust then reverse lunge with arms over head–basically into a crescent lunge); repeat other side; 6. 3 side hops into a squat; repeat; 7. knee skips (lunge back, touching ground with hand and then jump up, lifting knee); repeat on other side; 8. cross country squats (3 jump lunges and one squat–all plyo); repeat. Stretch.

Amazing Abs: No warm up; 1. while standing do knee lifts with arms in genie, halfway through move hands behind head and lift knees to side; 2. get in plank, bend knee into nose, cross knee under body then lift leg to outside of body; 3. teaser kick (sit on bottom with legs stretched out in front of you, feet hip distance apart, roll back into C-curve arms out straight in front of you and hands clasped, lift one leg and twist arms to same side (working obliques); 4. lay on back, hands behind head and lift shoulder/head and crunch while raising one leg first straight up then with foot curved in; 5. stacked crunch (with hands behind head, place heel of one foot on toe of the other and bend knees touching elbow to opposite knee), end with 10 seconds of boat pose.  Repeat all 5 on other side of body. Stretch.