Today’s exercise comes to us from Marty Beene – he’s a regular guest blogger here and is sponsoring one of our Swimsuit Ready giveaways (a 3 Month Block of Running Coaching).

Marty calls for doing this booty-toning move while going up and down the stairs. We put Rach onto a step stool to give you an idea of what to do with each step you take up the stairs this month:

Stair-Climbing Plus

The best exercise I know of to strengthen and tone your upper upper upper hamstrings (OK, your ass) is to simply walk up stairs and do a backward leg lift with each step.

You can do this on any stairs, indoors or out, or on a stair-climbing machine at the gym. Your speed going up the stairs should actually be quite slow because you want to be sure to do a complete backward leg lift each time you take your foot off of the bottom stair before you step up. Be sure to keep the leg you’re lifting as straight as possible. That’s it – it’s pretty simple.

This is a very demanding exercise, so you don’t want to start out doing very many. Like anything else, start out with just a dozen or two and work up from there.

Marty Beene, Assistant Coach, Alameda High School Track & Cross Country

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Swimsuit Ready Challenge

This exercise is part of our Swimsuit Ready Challenge (April 2-30, 2012). Do this exercise and comment below “I did this!” to be entered to win our $100 and $50 giveaways. You may enter up to one time per day through April 30th.

Also – be sure to share this on Facebook, Pinterest and other sites to let your friends cheer you on or – better yet – join in on the challenge so they can hang out on the beach with you this summer!