This article is part of SELF’s Keep It Hot package, a collection of content that celebrates love and lust. Throughout February, we’ll be dishing out advice and inspiration for feeling hot, getting horny, and nurturing romantic relationships.
Sex can be a good workout, sure, but it also works the other way around: A workout can make for some pretty good sex too. All you need to do is keep a few things in mind when planning your routine to really bring on the bedroom benefits.
Most important? Mobility, strength, and endurance, all of which can help you go the distance—and enjoy the process that much more, Lizzy Bristow, CSCS, owner of Body by Daddy who specializes in fitness for the LGBTQ+ community, tells SELF. She created the following strength workout for SELF that works on all of those factors and is sure to get you all fired up.
You’ll begin with a warm-up, which is focused on getting your body nice and mobile so you feel comfortable moving through your full range of motion in the work that follows. Warming up your hips is particularly key, since your glutes play a clutch role in this routine and in the bedroom. You’ll also spend some time loosening up your back, shoulders, core, and spine for good measure.
Your first set of work is a glutes-heavy superset, where you’ll stack a weighted hip thrust with a bodyweight glute bridge march. “In the bedroom, there’s a lot of thrusting motions, so that’s where strength comes in,” Bristow says. You’ll also be playing with tempos and pauses here, which gives your glutes that muscle memory of what more time under tension feels like—for when you need to hold that peak position just a bit longer.
Katie Thompson
It’s not all about thrusting, though: Your fingers, hands, and forearms need to be in just as tip-top shape. That’s why Bristow included four specific moves designed to build the muscular endurance you need for that delicate finger work—which, she says, can strain the small muscles in your digits as they move in and hold different positions.