You’re probably here because you might not have been genetically blessed in the booty department and are looking to grow your butt. No fear! I’m right there with ya and am here to tell you it is completely possible. Hooray! Full disclosure: the amount of junk you can get in your trunk is partially up to genetics...but you can put some substantial muscle on.
To build your butt you have to build muscle. And to build muscle you have to do 2 things: strength train and eat a proper amount of food. Let’s break that down:
Strength Train
With the goal of growing your butt you can’t just show up to the gym and do random workouts and hope your butt starts to grow. You have to be really purposeful with your workouts when your goal is building muscle. You should follow a program focused on the following:
1. Progressive overload - This means adding some sort of stimulus to your muscle over time. Typically this will mean adding weight, reps or sets to make the current exercise more difficult but it could also mean things like slowing down the exercise to increase time under tension, doing 1.5 reps, or doing a more difficult variation of the current exercise. I recommend following the same exercise program for 4-8 weeks, adding stimulus over time, before starting a new set of exercises. Your muscles want that repetition!
2. Compound lifts like squat, deadlift, hip thrust, and Bulgarian split squats - Sorry ladies but a million jump squats and rainbow kicks aren’t going to cut it. Big compound movements that use multiple muscle groups are going to be your new bff when it comes to growing your butt. Incorporate variations of squats, deadlifts, hip thrusts and Bulgarian split squats into your program. Ideally compound lifts will be the first 1 -2 exercises in your program. That way you’re doing them while your glutes are “freshest” and most recovered and you’ll be able to lift the heaviest.
3. Lifting close to failure - In order to build muscle and grow your butt you need to be lifting HEAVY. You want to be training close to failure. As a good rule of thumb you should feel like you could only do about 1-2 more reps on your final rep. So for example let’s say your program called for 8 reps of squats. On that 8th rep you should feel like you only have 1-2 more reps left in you before you fail the exercise. If you feel like you could do 3+ more reps...you need to pick up heavier weight or add more reps to your program.
4. Proper rest- In order to get serious gainz and really grow your butt you have to work your glutes as often as you can right?! Wrong. Your muscle fibers break down while you’re working out and THEN they repair and build back stronger(and bigger hehe) when you rest. If you never give yourself proper rest, you never give your muscle time to repair and get bigger. Aka you’re never giving your butt a chance to grow! Take proper rest in-between sets(I recommend 2-3 minutes for most exercises) and REST between workout sessions. Allow at least 48hrs rest after training your glutes before hitting them again. Yes, in any capacity. I see you trying to sneak in a bunch of HIIT on your “rest” days. That’s still going to be putting your muscles to work.
Eat More
Alright you’ve got your workouts taken care of. Now it’s time for the part of the equation that a lot of people are missing because it might feel a little scary...eating more.
Remember, to grow your butt you need to build muscle. And to effectively build muscle you should be eating a maintenance calories OR even better a surplus. If the thought of eating in a surplus and purposefully gaining a little weight(fat gain can be extremely minimal!) is terrifying to you...start at maintenance. Most of you have probably been trying to make the scale go down for years and years so this still might be a little scary. You might not even know HOW to eat at maintenance and not shoot for fat loss.
First you need to find your maintenance calories:
Take your current bodyweight and multiply it by 14-15. That’s the number of daily calories you should be shooting for. So if you currently weigh 150lbs, your maintenance range will likely be about 2100- 2250 calories a day. A few things to keep in mind:
This is a best estimate and your maintenance calories can change based on the amount of muscle you have and activity levels, among other things. When your weight is stable & fluctuating between about 5lbs you can be pretty confident you’re in maintenance.
Maintenance means MAINTAIN it does not mean gain fat. Chill.
The scale probably will spike up. You’ll be eating more food and will physically have more to digest in your stomach. You’re also probably eating more carbs & sodium than usual which will cause you to retain water. The scale spike is going to be water weight not fat gain.
Don’t forget muscle has weight too! When you start really growing your butt and putting on muscle the scale may reflect that increased muscle.
If the thought of eating more and not seeing the scale go down is terrifying to you…it probably means you need to try it :)
Bonus item needed to grow your butt: PATIENCE
I so wish you could do all of this for a week and then wake up with a giant booty but that’s just not the case. Building muscle and growing your butt takes TIME. Like months and years. You have to be patient and be committed to consistently training for a long time. You won’t grow your butt overnight. Follow consistent resistance training programs and eat at maintenance or in a surplus for an extended period of time(like 6 months+!) before deciding if this is “working” for you or not.
Don’t be tempted by the 10 minute booty burning workouts on Youtube or leave growing your butt up to just booty bands! Apply the strategies outlined above, give yourself time, and you’ll see your butt start to grow. Cheers to all your future booty gainz!
And if you want a personalized program to help you grow your butt in the most effective way apply for 1:1 coaching here.