This post is for gym bunnies and non-gym bunnies alike and it’s about a very serious subject guys. A very serious subject indeed. So, buckle up because we are about to talk about the booty. The glutes. Dat ass. The wagon. The rump. The derriere. The junk in the trunk, yo. You catch my drift.

One of the nice side effects of being one of those people that plays a bit of sport and does the odd (or indeed more frequent) bit of training, is that your physique starts to shape up. Sure, we’re not all instagrammable fitness models (in fact the last thing I posted on our joint Insta account was a picture of my toe after my toenail fell off… true story: I had to shave my toe before I took the photo lest it was deemed just TOO gross by Katie, or indeed any of our lovely followers. But I digress.), but there is no harm at all in being bloody proud of the body you have worked hard for or when you achieve a particular goal you’ve set for yourself.

One of the things I’m working on at the moment, with the help of my long-suffering and eternally patient boyfriend, is squats – I have another post in the pipeline to talk about this some more – but one of the things I have read a lot about in relation to this recently is that squats alone does not a cracking booty make. Rather, if your goal is to work on the shape and lift of your butt, you need to complement those squats with other targeted exercises.

So, imagine my delight when we were invited to a Curvebuilding Workshop by the lovely Chardét, founder of Corpao Fitness. Their ethos is to inspire women to embrace the Brazilian fitness lifestyle, and having heard Katie Ferg’s stories from her trip to Rio last year where she said “everyone is HOT AS F**K”, I am on board with whatever those Brazilian chicks are doing to get into shape.We didn’t really have any idea what to expect – was it going to be like Zumba? Would we need to know how to dance? Would it be sexy? The answers to those particular questions: no, no and we weren’t particularly, no. Blasting out some wiggle-worthy salsa tunes, Chardét provided us all with a pair of sand filled ankle weights (nothing too heavy, just enough to provide a bit of resistance) and took us through a series of exercises that can easily be incorporated into a regular gym routine or done at home if you have a step, bench or equivalent.

Each exercise is designed to strengthen, shape or tone different muscles to promote that curvy booty/defined waist/toned arm look, and it isn’t a cakewalk by any means – we felt the burn! From kickbacks to squats, pulses to held stretches, salsa arms to having-to-switch-handweights-because-you-picked-up-the-heavy-ones-thinking-you-were-buff-but-realising-you-are-not-a-strong-salsa-dancer, it was a tough old session (Between you and I, Katie text me two days later to say she was waddling. I told her to channel her inner Marilyn Monroe…)

To give you a taste of what we got up to Corpão fitness have given our readers exclusive access to some of their content, so you guys can try it out for yourselves!

Head to this link to check out the moves for yourselves: https://vimeo.com/album/4511407 

Password: thesegirlsdo

We’d love to hear what you think of the exercises – let us know in the comments or on Twitter, or send us pics on Instagram!

If you fancy heading to a Curvebuilding Workshop (and we thoroughly recommend you do), they are held monthly on weekend afternoons in Holborn and all the details can be found at https://corpaofitness.com/pages/corpaoclasses

Happy Curvebuilding!