So, you’re tired of copying endless Instagram model workouts that claim the best exercises to build a better butt require one resistance band.
“First, there was Greek civilization. Then there was the renaissance. Now we’re entering the Age of the Ass.” – Jean-Luc Godard
Well, you’ve come to the right place. Keep reading to find out how to build a better butt.
How To Build A Better Butt
Before you skip ahead to the exercises guaranteed to build a better butt, there are a few crucial details that need to be covered.
If you genuinely want to grow a better butt, there are two things you need to be aware of.
#1 You must lift heavy weights; resistance bands aren’t cutting it.
#2 You must pay attention to your nutrition. Growing powerful buns requires fuel.
Nutrition Goals To Build A Better Butt
This section overviews the best nutrition practices for growing a solid set of glutes. For everything you need to know about fat loss, grab your free copy of my Fat Loss Guide.
In a nutshell, the only way to lose weight is to be in a calorie deficit.
And the only way you’ll grow muscles is if you’re eating enough.
Quite a problem if you are only eating 1,200 calories, doing endless cardio, and doing resistance band workouts.
Eat More Protein & Build A Better Butt
To maximize muscle growth, you can’t skimp on your intake protein.
Protein is the building block of muscle development, preservation, and recovery.
The typical percentage of protein in a diet can range from 10-35 percent.
You can use the following formula to figure out your daily protein goal range.
Goal Body Weight in pounds x .7 = Lower range in grams.
Goal Body Weight in pounds x 1 = Upper range in grams.
Example:
120lbs x .7= 84g
120lbs x 1 = 120g
Yes, you can go over your daily protein goal; nothing terrible will happen. In other words, you should prioritize hitting your protein goal daily within plus or minus ten grams.
Should You Eat More To Build Your Glutes?
To lose weight, you need to be in a calorie deficit.
Calorie Deficit: A calorie deficit is eating fewer calories than your body burns for energy.
Nutrition Science
To gain weight, you need to be in a calorie surplus.
Calorie Surplus: A calorie surplus is eating more calories than your body burns for energy.
Nutrition Science
To maintain your current weight, you will need to eat at maintenance.
Calorie Maintenance: Maintenance calories are the calories that allow you to maintain your current weight.
Some guy on the internet….Nutrition Science
You might think you should be in a calorie deficit; however, to build a strong set of buns you need to eat more than a toddler.
Body Recomposition
If your goal is to lose weight and gain muscle, you can do it; however, not at the same time.. unless you’re a newbie.
A male might gain 15-25 pounds of muscle in their first year of training, and a female may gain about half of that.
Someone new to weight loss will also find that there can be “newbie losses.”
It is vital to understand that it wont be a linear progression while in a fat loss phase.
It’s a perfect storm for muscle gain and fat loss when someone is new to both training & fat loss.
This is what happened to my online coaching client, Sara.
Would you believe me if I told you she weighed the same in these two pictures?
She does.
That is body recomposition.
Body Recomposition – Training to lose body fat and to gain muscle.
Read anything on this website.
If this isn’t your first rodeo, the last thing you must do is another crash diet.
Dieting While Building A Better Butt
Instead of using another ultra low-calorie diet, I recommend following the Diet 2.0 blueprint.
If you are familiar with strength training, the concept of periodization
Periodization: the planned manipulation of training variables (load, sets, and repetitions) to maximize training adaptations and prevent the onset of overtraining syndrome.
The Diet 2.0 blueprint uses the concept of nutritional periodization.
Nutritional Periodization: The strategic combined use of exercise training and nutrition, or nutrition only, with the overall aim of obtaining adaptations that support exercise performance
Periodization aims to prevent overtraining or premature peaking before an athletic event.
While you might not be stepping on stage for a physique competition, you certainly don’t want to have diet fatigue.
The Diet Before The Diet
Yes, you read that correctly: the diet before the diet.
If you have a dramatic amount of weight to lose, I suggest entering into a calorie deficit, simply because of the health benefits from reducing overall body weight.
The fat loss guide would help set you on the right track.
If you are relatively lean with little muscle mass or someone who has lost a dramatic amount of weight only performing cardio, you will benefit from sticking to maintenance calories.
You may be tempted to set an aggressive calorie deficit to lose weight fast.
Call me crazy, but the aggressive deficit hasn’t worked before, so why would it work now?
Instead of setting your calories low, try one or two months of maintenance calories.
While in maintenance, you can spend time focusing on the following:
- Stress levels
- Sleep quality
- Getting stronger
- Staying hydrated
- Improving daily activity levels
- Hitting your daily protein goal consistently
You might be surprised that the scale goes down simply due to building strength & hitting your calorie target.
How to Calculate Your Maintenance Calories
You can use my weight loss calculator and check out my macro tracking article to figure out your calories.
To determine your estimated maintenance calories, use the following steps:
- Track your calories for two weeks as accurately as possible.
- Weigh yourself first thing in the morning and track it.
- At the end of the week, take the sum of your weekly calories and divide it by seven for the weekly average.
- Repeat this step for your weight to give you your average weight.
Do this for two weeks, and if the weekly average weight remains the same, you have determined your maintenance calories.
If your weekly average increases, you are in a calorie surplus.
If your weekly average decreases, you are in a deficit.
You could skip all of the above and do your current weight in pounds multiplied by 15 to give you your estimated maintenance calories.
How To Calculate Your Calorie Deficit
You could reduce your weekly calorie average by 15-20% and be in a moderate calorie deficit.
It could be simply reducing your daily calorie intake by 500 calories total.
Another option is to use the following equation:
Goal Body Weight multiplied by 12.
Take that number and add or subtract 100 to give you a daily calorie range.
Aim to hit your daily protein target within 10 grams & your calorie range for the day, and you will make progress.
Stick to this nutrition plan for the bare minimum of 30 days.
Thirty days being dialed into your nutrition is one step closer to glorious buns of steel.
How To Train To Build A Better Butt
Okay, now you are ready to build a strong pair of glutes.
Your nutrition is on point & you’re itching to start throwing around some iron.
Here is something important to consider:
Hypertrophy is a focus on developing muscle size.
Interestingly, a cross-over exists between strength, hypertrophy, and endurance rep ranges.
Completing 6-12 repetitions with proper load is a safe bet for hypertrophy.
A proper program will be at least four weeks long and will increase your strength.
Progressive overload is involved in any strength training program and strengthens you.
The simplest example would be increasing the weight you lift every session. If you are new to lifting weights, you might increase the weight from session to session; however, there is a cap.
For instance, if your goal is to increase your hip thrust press by 5 pounds weekly, the likelihood of injury grows..and if it were that easy, we would all be thrusting 450 pounds.
Slight progressions in tempo, rest intervals, range of motion, and reps completed can all increase the difficulty of a program.
Critical Factors For Glute Growth
You are stronger than you think, so you should challenge yourself during your workouts.
Does that necessarily mean you will max out every workout?
No, please don’t do that.
Several factors are necessary for an effective training program with the goal of hypertrophy.
#1. Time under tension.
Time under tension is the total time a muscle or muscle group is under tension during a set.
Research has shown that increasing the time under tension can improve muscle growth.
Your rest period will be more extended when you increase the time under tension.
The longer rest period allows for proper recovery and enables you to maximize each training set.
#2. Training Muscles In The Lengthened Position
Training muscles in the lengthened position is a fancy way of saying train using a full range of motion. The body can take on more weight through the eccentric portion of an exercise.
Focusing on a slow lowering phase with a pause in the stretched position is a game changer.
A prime example would be the Romanian Dead Lift.
Lowering the weight slowly, controlling, and pausing in the bottom position creates a stretch through the hamstring and glutes.
Having a slight bend in the knee places a greater emphasis on the glutes.
The pause in the bottom (stretched position) eliminates momentum and requires more strength to return to the starting position.
#3 Double Progression
Most training programs might have 3 sets of 10 reps or 3×10.
That programming implies you aim for ten repetitions across three sets; however, does that mean you increase the weight you use each week?
Someone new to strength training may increase the load they lift each week thanks to newbie gains.
Don’t get too excited because that won’t last forever.
If it did last forever, I would be deadlifting 900 pounds regularly.
Enter the magic of double progressions.
A double progression implies you will first increase the number of reps within a specific rep range before increasing the weight.
Instead of seeing 3 x 10 you could see something like 3 x 6-8
Why does this matter?
You will be able to milk each exercise for all it’s worth. It’s not about how many different exercises are in a program but the quality and volume of the exercises you complete.
In other words, you’re better off sticking with an exercise for a more extended period and getting stronger.
So, if the programming called for a Sumo Deadlift for 3×6-8, here’s what your progression might look like over four weeks.
W1: 165lbs 6,5,6
W2: 165 lbs 6,6,6
W3: 165lbs 7,7,6
W4: 165lbs 8,8,8
During your next phase, you would increase the weight and start all over.
It will be a challenge & that is what you need.
#4 Challenge Yourself
You need to challenge yourself.
The number of times I have had to tell my clients that they are strong would blow your mind.
Look at Sara pulling 225lb like it’s nothing.
The only way you get stronger is to push yourself.
To help illustrate my point, let’s use the Rate Of Perceived Exertion (RPE) to determine the difficulty of an exercise.
If you were to perform a set of Bulgarian Split Squats at an RPE of 8, you would be miserable.
However, if it was between life and death, you could squeeze out a few more reps on each leg.
A lot of it boils down to your mentality surrounding strength training.
You might think be thinking:
- Am I going to get hurt?
- Am I going to drop this weight?
- Is this set stealing my soul?
- Fuck my coach for programming this. 😈
All valid thoughts.
But chances are you will be fine.
Because if you can’t finish the rep, you can bail, drop the weights, and let your knee tap the ground.
Then, when you’re driving home listening to Taylor’s Verison of 1989, you will realize you had a few more reps in the tank.
It happens every damn time.
So, do be afraid to challenge yourself.
And if all else fails, order a set of weight-lifting straps.
Then you have no excuse but to try your hardest.
Exercises to Build A Better Butt
This video dives into all the information we have covered thus far.
I encourage you to watch the entire video.
But if you are an eager beaver, jump to the exercise tutorials.
Leg Day Programming To Grow A Strong Booty
Here is a workout that incorporates everything covered in this article.
You may not have access to a barbell, so this is a dumbbell-only training session.
Don’t worry; it will still be challenging. Just ask any of my clients.
| Exercise | Set x Reps | Rest |
| Movement Prep | ||
| 90/90 Breathing | 1×8 breaths | |
| Half Kneeling Rocking | 1x8ea | |
| Adductor Thread The Needle | 1x8ea | |
| Single Leg Glute Bridge | 1x8ea | |
| Worlds Greatest Stretch | 1x5ea | |
| Main Lift | ||
| A1. Sumo Deadlift | 3×6-8 | 120 Seconds |
| Accessory | ||
| B1.Bulgarian Split Squats w/ 3 second pause | 3×8-10ea | |
| B2. Couch Stretch | 3×30 seconds ea | 90-120 seconds |
| C1. Dead Stop Single Leg RDL | 3×10-12ea | |
| C2. Adductor Rocks | 3x12ea | 90-75 seconds |
| D1. Back Extensions | 3×12-15 | |
| D2. Copenhagen Plank | 3×20 seconds ea | 60 seconds |
| Optional Finisher | ||
| E1. Dumbbell Skier | 2×8 | |
| E2. Dumbbell Front Squat | 2×8 | |
| E3. Dumbbell RDL | 2×8 | Don’t put the dumbbells down and rest for eight breaths before repeating the circuit. |
| Stretch | ||
| Modified Pigeon | 2×30 seconds | |
| Half Kneeling Stretch | 2×30 seconds | |
| Seated Hamstring Stretch | 2×30 seconds | |
| 90/90 Breathing | 1×60 seconds |
Final Thoughts On Glute Growth
You are stronger than you think.
So, start acting like it.
Lift all the heavy things, eat well-balanced meals, and get more sleep.
Give yourself more than 30 days to see results & when all else fails, remember you really can’t fuck this up.
You are one session away from proving how strong you can be.
I know you can do it.
So, keep going.
If you’re trying to lose weight & you want to take the guesswork out of how much to eat for fat loss, click here and grab my weight loss calculator.
It’s the only calculator you will ever need and it will be in your inbox in less than 60 seconds.
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