Guide to the Lateral Band Walk

The lateral band walk is a fantastic way to target your glutes while helping to strengthen your hips and work out your thigh muscles. This simple, yet effective exercise can be performed almost anywhere, as it only requires a resistance band to be exercised thoroughly.

Lateral band walks are a fantastic way to warm up your glutes before strength training, or the exercise can be included as part of wider banded exercises, to help improve your existing routines.

In this article, we'll take a look at how to do lateral band walks the correct way, and why you should be including the lateral band walk in your regular exercise regimes!

How to do lateral band walks

You can include the lateral band walk as part of your regular training regime, as it makes for a great warm-up exercise. If you train your lower body using weights, or other squat exercises, then the lateral band walk is an effective way to loosen up your muscles before a larger, more intense workout.

You can also include the lateral walk with a band as part of a wider resistance band workout or any other type of circuit training, as it complements many other exercises well, especially if you're focusing on defining your glutes.

Remember to always stretch and warm-up before you begin any intense workouts!

 Lateral band walk

1. Adopt a loose standing position with your feet placed together.
2. Place your resistance band around your upper legs. Place it above your knees, so the band is wrapped around your thighs.
3. For this exercise, you need to adopt a semi-squat position. Bend your knees to a 45-degree angle and arch your back. Hold your arms out, keeping them in front of your body with hands held together, to help you balance.
4. Take your right leg and move it firmly to your right-hand side, away from your left leg. Push through your hips while maintaining the squat position.
5. Raise your left leg and bring it across to the right, in line with your right leg
6. Raise your right leg again, and bring it out towards your right-hand side.
7. Raise your left leg again, and bring it out, so it's in line with your right leg.
8. Repeat this process until you have run out of space on your right-hand side, or until you've made ten movements.
9. Repeat the exercise on your left-hand side, using the same technique. Again, do this until you run out of space in your exercise area, or have completed ten repetitions.
10. Focus on your technique and posture, and remember to keep the squat position as you sidestep.
11. Speed up the pace as you master the technique, to help engage your body aerobically.

 

When doing the lateral band walk, it's important to focus on your posture and technique. Perform the movements slowly, to begin with, and speed up as you become more confident and are able to hold the correct position for an entire set.

If you only have limited space, then you can still perform the movements. Simply move one pace to the right, then move back to the center before moving out to the left, then back to the center.

As you define your technique and improve the strength in your glutes, you can increase the difficulty of the banded side steps by including more resistive bands in the workout. The added resistance will help to build stronger muscles while toning your physique.

You can vary the exercise itself, by placing the resistance band around your ankles rather than around your thighs. This will help to stimulate further leg muscles and makes for a great addition to your banded walk exercises.

What muscles do lateral band walk exercises work?

The main target muscles for lateral band walks are the Gluteus Minimus and the Gluteus Medius muscles. These are two important muscles that need to be focused on if you're attempting to define your posterior!

The gluteus muscles are incredibly powerful, and if you are trying to gain strength for deadlifts, these muscles are much needed. At the same time, your hip muscles are worked out, as are your thigh muscles.

What are the benefits of lateral band walk exercises?

Regularly including lateral band walks in your exercise routines will present you with a number of benefits to your health, while also helping to tone and define your glutes.

Here are the most important benefits you gain from lateral band walk exercises:

• An excellent warm-up exercise for weightlifters.
• Build strength in your glutes, things, and hips.
• Tone and define existing muscles.
• Burn fat.
• Improve aerobic fitness.
• Improve the health of your hip joints and improve your hip rotation.
• Avoid long term pains and injuries.

As with any exercise routine, it's important to regularly include banded lateral walks into your schedule if you want to see improvements. Try to include the movements several times per week, for the most efficient results.

Final words on banded lateral walk exercises

Lateral band exercises are a fantastic way to increase the definition in your glutes, while also strengthening your hips and building your thigh muscles.

Adding the exercise to your regular workouts, as a warm-up or a stand-alone exercise, will also help to improve your overall mobility and agility while avoiding long term injuries.

Remember to increase the difficulty of the exercise as you improve your strength and technique, by increasing the resistance of the bands you are using!