If you have ever done Pilates consistently before then you know that it is a great workout for your core, legs, and even upper body, that earns you a toned body with a more stable and strong core. If you haven’t done Pilates before, or at least not on a regular basis, then you are missing out on not only the toning effects it provides but also the improved core conditioning that improves your core stability in every other type of exercise you do, from HIIT workouts to traditional strength training. That especially goes for you guys that do heavy Olympic style lifting as you can benefit from the improvement in core stability even more than those who are cardio and HIIT junkies.

Though this workout targets the legs it also forces the core to engage to control hip stabilization. This combination of functions and muscle groups helps your body to function more efficiently when doing everyday life activities, learning new physical activities as well as completing high intensity activities such as HIIT, and Plyometric workouts and more.

This butt and thigh routine is intended to primarily focus on the quadriceps, hamstring, glutes and hip flexors. You can expect to see an increase in tone and definition in all of these areas as well as the lower back, obliques, and abs not to mention the real benefit of this workout, an increase in muscle endurance, strength, and functionality.

Because this routine is primarily done lying down the heart rate will stay low and the calorie burn will be relatively low. Be very careful if you are using a heart rate monitor to estimate calorie burn, especially with this type of workout, as the especially low heart rate due to the heart not having to work as hard to pump blood back up from the legs, will cause a heart rate monitor to drastically under estimate the number of calories burned.

So, how many calories does this workout burn? There are easy and hard versions of many of the exercises throughout this routine so depending on which version you do your calorie burn will be different. This gives us a pretty big range; anywhere from an average of 3 calories per minute on the low end to 8 calories per minute or more on the high end. That gives us a total burn of 96 to 256 for this 32-minute Pilates routine.

Below are the exercises and stretches used in this video, they are in the order used with the notations of which ones had multiple levels of difficulty.


Pilates Butt and Thigh, Leg Slimming Workout

- Imprint
- Pelvic Clock
- Leg Walk Up
- Leg Pulse
Double
Single
- Leg Circles
Small (alternating)
Large (alternating)
- Bridge
Level One (both feet)
Single Leg
Left
Right
- Kneeling Rear Leg Raises
Left
Straight Leg
Bent Leg
Pulses
Right
Straight Leg
Bent Leg
Pulses
- Oblique and Hamstring Stretch
- Saw (alternating)
- Butterfly Stretch
- Deep Glute Stretch
- Torso Stretch
- Full Body Stretch