How to Get Your Dream Bum

bubble butt perfection

I see this everywhere I go.  Women doing endless amounts of Glute kickbacks or barbell hip thrusts and really going at it.  Squatting hard and lunging their ass off.  Yet, as weeks and months go by, not much has changed.

When women train Glutes, all they ever think of doing is extend their leg back – when you perform a Glute kick-back.  But the Glutes don’t just run down the body in a straight line.  They come across the body and THIS is the single, most common reason most woman can’t develop a great set of glutes.   I’ll break it down so it’s easier to understand.  The Glutes have 3 primary movements;

• Hip extension (forward and back – as in Glute kickbacks)
• External rotation of hip – Twist your right foot inwards and outwards and place your right hand on the right side of your Glute. Notice how its moving a little.
• Abduction of the hip (kick leg outwards to the side away from the body)

So, from the above, you can see that the Glutes don’t just run up and down, and the movement of the Glutes mean you MUST train it and move in all different angles and ranges of motion.

So always think next time, when training Glutes, am I extending hip?  In, most cases yes.  Have I got external rotation or abducting of hip? In most cases no. In fact, most people have internally rotated hips and adducted hips which means they struggle to work on the opposite action, a problem for the majority of people I come across.

Typically when girls squat, their knees and hips are rotated inwards, therefore they can’t target the glutes properly.  Next time you squat, look in the mirror and watch your knees cave in.  Don’t worry, I was the same, but I slowly worked on it.  Next time when you come up from the squat, try and point your knees out and pry them open.  This one simple trick can make all the difference.

Similarly, when performing standard barbell hip thrust.  When you get to the top, try and rotate Glutes and bring them inwards and you will maximally shorten the Glutes. Really squeeze them by driving your knees out as you come up, rather than just coming straight up.  I can guarantee if you do this one extra movement with the knees, you will feel the difference.  So come up, drive your knees out and open up whilst squeezing your Glutes.

Below are a few more reasons why women struggle with Glute development;

1. When performing split squats or lunges all the weight comes through your toes. If you’re struggling to feel your Glutes, just watch what happens when you lower into a lunge or split squat. If you feel all the weight is on your toes, the main emphasis here is in the hips and quads (front of leg) and not the glutes. Fixing this is easy.  It’s as simple as relaxing your toes and using all the force through your heels.  Yes, that’s all you need to do, problem solved. If you constantly squeeze and push through your toes, over time, you will negatively impact the biomechanics of the ankle joint, which will limit your range throughout most exercises.

2. You train in a partial range often. A lot of women will train in such a restricted range which does sweet nothings for optimal Glute development. Squats for example.  Women squat halfway, but can’t get down further.  Instead, they will tilt forward and bend forward, which causes an extreme amount of stress on the back.  If you’re someone who doesn’t squat right down to the floor with good posture, you’re not going to be targeting your Glutes anywhere near the same as the girl who does. Your Glutes and Hamstrings come into play a lot more when you go past halfway. Don’t get me wrong, everyone will have different length of limbs and this will impact your ability to squat.  Therefore, I can’t give a detailed breakdown of quick-fixes as I need to see the individual and assess them.  But the above is a very general and common problem which can be rectified by going deeper.

3. Women wear high heels a lot, which makes their calf muscles very tight. So when they try and do a full range squat, split squat or lunge their range is very limited. Despite having poor range women still do all the exercises they read about, but they don’t make the gains they expect. You can’t go into any movement expecting it to work for you because it worked for someone else.  Chances are, they took a long time fixing their own posture and imbalances before going into the more advanced movements.

This is as basic as it gets.  Your Glutes don’t run in a straight line, so target them from all angles and expose them to heavy tension, otherwise, they have no reason to grow.