You don’t have to be a slave to squats to get awesomely shaped glutes. You can work glute-shaping exercises into your cardio routine to achieve both goals at once. Just make sure to keep your heart rate in the target zone during each activity to gain the benefits of cardio exercise. Here are three different exercises that target your glutes while giving you the chance to drive your heart rate into the zone. Try it out.

Belly Dancing

The moves you’ll learn in belly dancing activate all of the muscles in your hips and butt. You will perform hip rolls, figure eights and shimmying motions that feel natural and freeing. Your ligaments and joints will loosen and stretch out during each session.

You will alternate between slow and quick movements to give your heart rate a boost before bringing it back down for a rest. Going through these motions allows you to hit your cardio zone several times for each session without burning out prematurely. You’ll notice a boost in flexibility and growth of the muscles along your back, abdomen, hips, butt and thighs after several weeks of belly dancing.

Sprinting

When you run at a sustainable pace, you usually start off jogging slow and gradually ramp up your pace. This works your entire body without focusing on any one set of muscles. When you sprint from a stop, however, you instantly activate the hamstring and glutes to push off at the starting line.

Continuing to run at full speed keeps those muscles pushing you along until you come to a sudden stop. A ten-second sprint drives your heart rate up to its target zone and keeps it there until you stop. After the first sprint, you’ll notice feeling out of breath and ready to take a break, even if you frequently run for exercise.

Walking Weighted Lunges

Lunges alone would shape your glutes, but fail to get your heart rate into the target range. Adding weights and forward movement changes the lunge game significantly. You can push yourself to see how fast you can make it across the room doing lunges while holding modestly sized weights in your hands.

Alternate legs as you do the lunges to work both sides of your butt along with both legs. Lunges activate the muscles in your entire body with a focus on the ones in your legs, butt and back. Check your heart rate at the end of each set to see if you need to go even faster to drive it into the right zone.

Finding Your Niche

Test out each type of exercise to find the one that works best for your needs. To stick with the plan, you really need to enjoy the exercises you perform. Otherwise, excuses will get in the way of your exercise schedule. Sticking with the one you enjoy will help you create shapely glutes while improving your overall health. Give the exercises a weeklong test period before moving onto the next one.