Portland Bridal Fitness: BUILD A STRONGER BRIDAL BOOTY

Backside. Buns. Booty. Butt.

No matter what you call it, your rear-end is bound to get a lot of attention on your wedding day. There's the walk down the aisle and the seemingly endless number of hours... ahem, I mean minutes during the ceremony leading up to your "I do" moment.

Well, aside from looking good in your dress, there are also some important functional/feel-good reasons to show your booty a little love.

Strong legs and glutes do more than just add curves to your curves.

Strong legs and glutes also help to improve your functional fitness and your athletic performance. That's especially important for those of you who like to do marathons, triathlons and Crossfit, as well as you active, "weekend athlete" types who also want as much protection from injury as possible so you can keep hiking, biking, surfing and kickball-ing with friends as long as possible. More practically, however, everyone can benefit from a stronger booty and legs because it can help to protect you from pain - more specifically back and knee pain.

How strong is your booty?

Unfortunately, however, since we tend to do waaay too much sitting there are a lot of weak bootys out there. Here's a quick way to check to see if yours is weak. Stand up, bring your feet about hip width apart and squat. Do your knees collapse inward? Do your heels raise? Is your back rounded and is your tush tucked under instead of pointed out behind you? If so, you may have a weak booty, my friend.

But not to worry. Here's a booty-buiilding Trifecta to help you add a little more roundness back there as well as some strength to lower your injury risk.