Reality star Kim Kardashian was voted ‘Best Booty’ in the first ever Gold’s Gym, Hollywood’s Hottest Bodies Awards. Now that’s a title to be proud of!  She is one curvilicious woman and according to celebrity trainer Ramona Braganza we can all have Kim’s booty by incorporating lunges, squats and step-ups. Of course those are the most dreaded in any girl’s workout but the results are fantastic. Here are Braganza’s three suggestions:

Weighted Squats
Hold a dumbbell in each hand and while keeping the weight in the back and heels squat down to the chair position and then stand back up. Be sure to squeeze your glutes when coming up.
Do 10 to 12 reps.

Single-Leg Lunges
Have one foot behind on a bench and the other on the floor and lunge down keeping back straight. Hold weights in each hand for extra intensity.
Do 10 to 12 reps on each leg.

Step-Ups
Have one foot in front of you on a bench and the other on the floor and step up on to the bench so that you’re standing on it, and then step back down. The higher the bench the harder the workout.
Do 10 to 12 reps on each leg.

Also this month, Gold’s Gym recognized Kelly Ripa for Best Arms, and Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie, for Best Legs.

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He may have just started flexing his muscles on the teen TV show Vampire Diaries, but Sean Faris has been training for years. He once had to put on 15 pounds of muscle for a movie role, and even broke a bone in his lower back when he trained for his MTV Movie award-winning ‘Best Fight’ scene in Never Back Down. But he made it through and developed a baseline level of fitness and shares his fundamental fitness tips.

1. Start small
Sean says anybody can be fit but you have to give your body time to adjust and take on reasonable goals. Don’t overwork your body. Only once you’ve reached your goals can you begin to make your workout more challenging.

2. Embrace unsteadiness
Sean works out with weights, but doesn’t use a belt – this way you are forced to focus on keeping your midsection tight and your lower back in its natural position. Every exercise you do this way works your core, which strengthens your midsection and endurance levels.

3. Amp up your reps
Stick to your usual repetition ranges, but occasionally challenge yourself with an ambitious one of say 50 to 60 reps, depending on what you’re doing. But if you feel you can’t do another rep with good form, rest a little and then continue.

4. Lift lighter and better

“I see so many people in the gym just slinging weight around,” Sean says. “You can accomplish more if you squeeze the reps out in perfect form, instead of going big and trying to kill it every time.”

5. Play anything
Try new moves, add a little more weights or reps, but if you’re bored don’t continue doing the same exercises or you’ll plateau. You can take your workout outside the gym by giving a new sport a try.

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We know Fergie exercises while she’s on tour with her Black Eyed Peas band mates, and that she double’s up on vegetables to maintain her figure. But just how does Us magazine’s “Best Legs” celebrity get those sexy legs? Star trainer Mike Ryan, from Gold’s Gym, explains exactly which exercises you can do to get the 34-year-old singer’s pins.

Squats
With feet a little wider than your hips, a straightened back straight and lifted chest, bend your knees as if to sit in a chair, and then straighten. Do 3 sets of 12, but as the week’s go by (or if you need a challenge sooner) add 3 to 5-pound dumbbells.

Walking Lunges
Standing with legs hip-width apart, step forward with your right leg – but don’t overextend your stride. Bending your knee, push down into the stride with your body. Now bring your left leg forward to stand. Next, repeat the step forward with your left leg. We all have different strides, so don’t count the number of lunges, but rather the distance – you’ll need to do 10 to 15 yards in each direction.

Step-ups
To shake things up a bit and focus on your thighs, a series of steps can help them. Face a bench and lift one leg onto it. Then lift the other leg to meet it. But don’t rest that leg on the bench, because you have to return it to the starting position for one rep. Do two sets of 10 reps on each leg.

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As probably the fittest celebrity in Hollywood, actress Jessica Biel not only climbed Mount Kilimanjaro recently, but she was also named the “Best Abs” in Us magazine. You too can get her rock-hard six-pack with these exercises she does regularly. Ramona Braganza, from Gold’s Gym who also trained Jessica for her role in The A-Team, says the 28-year-old is in the gym four days a week for at least an hour doing various moves.

The first exercise Jessica does 10 reps twice of are back extensions on a stability ball. Standing with your back to a wall, then lie forward on the ball, your legs straightened behind you, your soles flat against the wall and your arms extended. On an inhale, raise your torso and legs, hold it for a second or two and lower back down.

The second exercise is pushups. After a set of three on your toes, hold the plank position for five seconds, and then do another set – but you’ve got to keep your abs contracted.

The third exercise is two sets of 10 side-lying planks, which work your oblique muscles. Lie on your side on the floor with your feet stretched. Prop yourself on your right elbow at first and as you exhale, lift your hips off the floor. Hold for a short time, then lower back to the start. Don’t forget to switch sides afterwards.

Braganza says Jessica likes to cook, so she often prepares her own meals which almost always include vegetables and grains like quinoa and kasha.

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When I read the title of Jillian Michaels’ latest fitness DVD, Yoga Meltdown I did a double-take. What does this reality TV trainer with a background in martial arts know about yoga? But Jillian’s Yoga Meltdown isn’t yoga in its strictest sense, and it’s certainly not traditional yoga as we know it.

The Biggest Loser coach firmly believes that using your own body weight is the quickest, most efficient and most cost effective way to burn calories. Whereas weights could make you bulk up quickly, body weight training help you get lean. And this is exactly what Jillian focuses on in her new DVD.

“Yoga power poses are rooted in body weight training,” she says. “What I wanted to do [with this DVD] was take the platform and use the poses but create a fat-burning workout with them, so I am building kind of a hybrid in that you’re repping out traditional poses with movement in a circuit training fashion.”

In Jillian Michaels: Yoga Meltdown, she uses her fat-burning and cardio approach together with resistance and yoga’s power poses. If you’ve done Jillian’s 30 Day Shred DVD program you’ll already know her methodology – intervals and circuits combined with cardio and resistance. Jillian continues this concept with moves that are yoga-based, and including levels. Level 1 burns calories with quick-flowing yoga sequences while Level 2 adds more challenging twists and balance poses for more of a burn.

“The idea was let’s take everything people love about Shred and give them a different workout, since we all need some variety in our routines,” she says. “Plus, yoga has the added benefits of core strength and flexibility – and the way that I worked it all together made sure that it was calorie-burning, too.”

R&B singer Alicia Keys has a great voice, gorgeous looks and awesome curves. In previous interviews she has said that she doesn’t eat meat and dairy but now she tells Ok! magazine about her usual workouts.

When it comes to her exercise routine she trains with Josh Zitomer. You probably recognize his name because he’s the creator of myfitstream.com and he has also trained Jessica Simpson, Eva Mendes, John Mayer, Bono and Tobey Maguire. Alicia said that her most dreaded exercise with Josh is, The Ab Test. Josh describes it,

“Lay down on your back, draw your knees towards your chest. Put the palms of your hands on the side of your head near your ears. Crunch up and touch your knee caps with your elbows.  With your feet off the ground, elbows touching your knees and shoulder blades off the ground, roll into a ball. The key is to keep your elbows on your knee caps. Once in position, the trainer holds and pulls on the knees.”

This isometric exercise is just one activity that Josh does with the Grammy award winner. They also do a lot of running because Alicia says it makes her feel strong both mentally and physically. But it’s not just running that gets her heart pumping. Josh likes to incorporate other forms of cardio to prevent boredom such as biking, rowing and treadmill work.

When it comes to staying motivated Alicia likes to workout to good music. She likes a good variety which covers various artists like MGMT, Biggie, Jay-Z, Bob Sinclair and Roy Ayers.

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On her talk show this week, Wendy Williams featured celebrity trainer and Glamour magazine’s contributing editor Teddy Bass to help her audience with at-home mini workouts that target specific body parts. Teddy, who has worked with Jennifer Lopez, Lucy Lui and Christina Applegate to name only a few, says that eating healthily is not enough to lose weight because you have to “create a deficit” by burning calories.

In the video segment above, Teddy shows routines that work out your arms, thighs and abdominal muscles as Wendy huffs and puffs her way through the exercises. Some of the routines require dumb bells, but if you don’t own any weights, you can use bottles filled with water and even detergent bottles.

Celeb Diet Doc Says…
Teddy is misguided when he says that eating healthy is not enough to cause a calorie deficit. If you eat mostly unprocessed foods you will lose a tremendous amount of weight while exercise alone will result in minimal weight loss. However, exercise is a very strong predictor of weight maintenance.  Think diet to lose weight and exercise to keep it off.

We’re all in search of that workout we enjoy so much we want to keep doing. As a result of this search, the ancient Eastern practice of yoga has gone through so many adaptations; from Jivamukti yoga to Hatha yoga, Scientific yoga and even Yogilates. The new craze now, however, is Koga.

Last week  Dr. Oz, featured this new workout which combines kickboxing and yoga. Created by Jon Koga, a yoga and kickboxing instructor, Koga is an interesting blend of yoga’s flexibility and balance training and kickboxing’s strength and confidence building.

Celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson may have lost her most famous client Madonna after the two had a falling out, but that hasn’t stopped others like Gwyneth Paltrow, Courtney Cox and Kristin Davis from singing her praises.

“Many of you may already know of my passion for the Tracy Anderson Method and my investment in it,” Gwyneth says in her latest GOOP newsletter. “She has kicked my formerly sagging ass into shape and I will be forever grateful.”

In the video above Tracy demonstrates the arm workout Gwyneth did to whip her guns into shape for the Iron Man movie. But further in the newsletter Gwyneth also gets some of Tracy’s clients to sing her praises too.

Courtney says she’s seen results she never thought were possible. Her butt is lifted, her arms are sculpted and her skin clings to her muscles again. And the workouts are always a challenge; as soon as she masters one routine, she gets given something new and more challenging to do.

Sex & The City actress Kristin Davis says The Tracy Anderson Method DVD really does elongate as well as tone your muscles, without leaving your looking bulky. Kristin says she too gets bored easily, especially when it comes to cardio, but Tracy’s routines are always new and challenging and fun.

So while Tracy may have lost her biggest client, she certainly has more to fall back on.

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Olympic skier Julia Mancuso knows what it takes to get in shape, but as a lingerie model she also knows how to get in sexy shape. Competing at the Vancouver Olympics this month, Julia will be attempting the Ladies’ Downhill, the Ladies’ Super G and the Ladies’ Giant Slalom, and recently shared her three favorite exercises that help her prepare.

The Back Extension
Julia uses a stability ball for this move. Lying face-down, the ball at her hipbone, she does a normal back extension and then slowly lowers herself back down to the starting position. Do three sets of 10 reps each to work your back, core and glutes.

The Wood Chop
With your feet a little more than hip-width apart and a holding a medicine ball at shoulder level, bend your knees slightly. Then quickly pull the ball down to you left foot and return to the starting position. Again do three sets of 10 reps each to strengthen your core muscles.

The Single-Leg Squat
Standing on a stability cushion, balancing on one leg, do a mini-squat with the raised leg stretched out behind you. Raise back up to the starting position. If you want Julia’s strong (and shapely) legs, you’ll need to do three sets of 10 reps each.

As a skier, Julia needs a lot of energy from her diet and eats lots of vegetables, greens and lean meats – but stays away from wheat and gluten. She’s also a very big fan of organic food.

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