Bigger, Better Glutes

You've been working out, you've been training, but your butt simply won't grow - it's not getting rounder.

This blog will tell you why it's not growing and even better, how to make it grow.

You'll learn the best exercises, how to plan it and how to train properly for bigger, better glutes.

First up, you need to know what 'glutes' actually are: they are a group of muscles - gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus.

Each muscle plays a different role.

Glute max - moves leg behind you (hip extension).

Glute med - moves leg away from you (hip abduction).

Glute min - same as medius plus internal hip rotation.

They all help us stabilise our pelvis and control our movements. They play a massive role, and everyone - men and women - should train them.

Glutes make us look athletic, strong and we perform better when stronger. It's a muscle we can really grow.

In my all-time top 3 clientele requests:

"I want to get bigger, rounder glutes"

Keep in mind that 60-70% of personal training clients globally are women. From my experience as a trainer, this trend for bigger glutes seemed to start when J-Lo rose to fame. I doubt anyone was focusing on 'glute training' in the 90s.

99.9% of the time it's for aesthetic reasons as opposed to injury avoidance or performance increases, which are a by-product of stronger glute muscles.

As a trainer, I'm confident of success when going for this goal. The formula is easy; the adherance to the steps that lead to it, are challenging.

A lot of the time the same client will want to lose body fat at the same time. The best way to achieve this? Pick one and focus on that.

The biggest reason women fail to build bigger glutes is, they simply don't train, sleep or eat, to build.

Forget the butt, that goes for muscle in general.

For so long, women have been conditioned to train, eat and live, to lose: to lose weight, eat less calories, train light, which is very counter-productive to gaining any muscle at all.

'Don't lift weights, you'll look like a man'.

Advertising campaigns for Pilates, barre, yoga, and similar classes claim they will help you achieve long, lean muscles.

Marketing targeted at women often exploits their fears of becoming too muscular or bulky. However, when it comes to the glutes, how will they grow if you don't become stronger?

You cannot get stronger without lifting heavy. Fact.

Doing stretches or holding for time in a class, just won't do it. Long, lean muscles sounds good...but do you want long, lean glute muscles? How would that look...

You might even be training well already, and by increasing calories, glutes will show up.

A common misconception in fitness is that lifting heavy weights will make you look masculine. While social media might give that impression, it's not accurate.

It just doesn't happen.

Women don't naturally produce enough testosterone, they don't eat 200g of protein per day on a 3500 calories diet, and they don't take the other supplements needed.

99% of the time, when a female client lifts heavy, they end up looking exactly the way they've always wanted. You have to trust the process.

The second biggest myth is that there's exercises that men do, and exercises that women do. That is so wrong. There are effective exercises and less effective exercises, that's it.

If you squat, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, it's going to grow muscle. If you hip thrust on the machine, same thing, it's a hugely beneficial exercise that needs to be done by both genders.

Machines and exercises are also often marketed for one gender. The 'Glute Builder' in my gym has pink lettering. The bicep curl machine is blacked out.

How to build your glutes:

Training: Top 3 exercises for glute developement: Hip Thrust, Reverse Lunges, Squats. Hit those three, consistently, you're gonna make gains.

Research shows working out the glute muscles, three times per week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) is shown to be the most efficient way. You can build with two workouts per week, if it's set up and planned correctly, but three is better.

With three sessions, I recommend doing this;

Day 1: Squat Movements. Focus on squat movements like barbell back squat, 1 leg hack squat, lunges, bulgarian split lunges, reverse lunges etc.

Essentially this is a squat-movement day. 3 sets of 8-12 reps, leaving a couple of reps in reserve. Pick 3 exercises and do three sets of each exercise. It might look like this:

Barbell back squat: 3 x 10

Hack squat: 3 x 10

Walking lunges: 3 x 10

Then you can add in some cable kick-backs, some lateral movements too, so you've hit all three glute muscles.

Cable kick back: 3 x 15

Standing Hip abduction: 3 x 15

After that, you're done. If you want to do some upper body, feel free. But glutes are done.

Day 2: Hip Extension Movements. Focus on hip extension, thrust movements. It might look like this:

Glute builder machine: 3 x 10

1 leg Bridge: 3 X 10

Reverse 45* Hypers: 3 x 10

You could also add in some weigthed box steps and banded work to finish.

High box step ups: 2 x 10

Glute band laterals: 3 x 15

Day 3: Deadlift Movements+. I'm a big fan of Romanian deadlifts and different variations. As it's day 3, hopefully a Friday, you have extra rest after this so we can add in some other exercises too. Day 3 might look like this:

RDL: 3 x 12

1 leg RDL: 2 x 15

Sumo Squat: 3 x 10

1 leg hack squat: 3 x 10

Weighted Squat Jump: 2 x 20

*An important note is to take 2 minutes rest between each set. This is what makes it muscle building. We generate something called ATP - Adenosine Triphosphate - which is an energy-giving molecule.

When we do a set, we use up our stored ATP and it takes 2-3 minutes to regenerate.

When training, weights should heavy enough that you can keep good technique while ensuring the last couple of reps are a real challenge.

After four weeks, you can switch up the exercises, go higher reps, lower reps - I think variation is key to growth.

Nutrition/Diet: You can do the best exercises, the best workouts, but if you don't fuel and feed the muscles, it's kind of a waste of time.

Based on your calorie intake, you are either maintaining your weight, in an anabolic state (building), or in a catabolic state (shrinking).

Let's say a client wants to grow their glutes, but lose body fat at the same time.

To grow muscle - the glutes in this case - we need to eat more calories than our body needs to maintain it's weight. This is called a calorie surplus. The extra calories are needed to build more muscle tissue.

To lose body fat, we need to eat less calories than our body needs to maintain its normal weight. The body pulls from fat stores when calories drop. This is called a calorie defecit.

You've got to pick one, to get the best results. Trying to do them simultaneously, you're going to see very little movement either way. It can be done, but it takes a long, long time to see noticable results. And most people quit due to the perceived lack of results.

Step one is working out how many calories you require to maintain your body weight each day (Google it), then adding around 300-500 calories above maintenance is ideal to grow muscle. Reverse that for weight loss.

I always recommend focusing on building muscle first. After you've developed muscle, reduce your calorie intake (while maintaining high protein levels to protect your new muscle) to shed any extra fat gained. It's challenging to make a client understand that gaining a centimeter around the waist is worth it for a 5cm increase around the glutes. They need to accept this process.

As I mentioned, the formula is easy: adherance to a diet in-line with your goals is harder.

Sleep: Muscle is built during our sleep. It's where we recover and grow. We break our muscles down in the gym, then food and sleep builds us back, stronger.

Common guidelines say 8 hours sleep is good. 9 hours is even better. Take a look at my sleep blog for full rundown on sleep.

Exercises that you're wasting your time doing:

• I see it a lot in Marbella - walking on a stairmaster kicking one leg out behind on each step. Come on, stop that. Probably saw it on a Kardashian episode.

• Next up is only using glute bands for your entire glute workout. You can't put enough force necessary through a band. Bands are great to warm up with but that's it.

• Doing rep after rep in a quick, pulsing movement for minutes on end, getting that burn. Yes the burn feels good, you're filling your muscle with blood, but you're not growing the muscle.

Another question often asked is how to get rid of 'hip dips'. This is where you might see a hollowing in the glute area, maybe the size of a golf ball, on the sides.

This space is where the glute medius meets the glute max and creates a hollow. There is no muscle there to grow, so anyone that tells you otherwise is lying to you. The leaner you are, the more prominant the dips appear. If it's a real big deal for you, increasing body fat will fill the gap.

That is how to grow your glutes.

If anyone has any questions about this blog, please get in touch via my website.

Thanks for reading!

Iain