The best way to pump up your glutes: advice from fitness experts

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Girls are loved not for their figure, but for their natural charm, sense of humor, character and many other qualities. However, you want to be irresistible in everything, and an obstacle to perfection can be an insufficiently voluminous or unfitted butt.

Those with this problem most often know exactly or intuitively guess the reason - untrained muscles, genetic predisposition, or too thin a figure. But sometimes the reason lies not in the gluteal muscle, but in the wrong mood or poor nutrition.

Bret Contreras

Strength Coach and Performance Expert

To pump up the gluteal muscles, you need to meet two conditions: load them quite heavily (and increase the load over time) and learn to mentally concentrate on the working muscle.

Start your workout with a “heavy” exercise that allows you to move heavy weights—such as a barbell squat, Romanian deadlift, sumo deadlift, deadlift, or platform leg press. Keep a training diary and regularly record your progress in these exercises - weights, sets, repetitions. It is important to get enough rest between sets.

Finish the workout with lighter, isolation exercises such as frog pumps with dumbbells, glute bridges with a resistance band around the knees and dumbbells, hyperextensions without weights and the like.

Do more repetitions of these exercises and rest less in between. You don't have to count reps, but it is important to engage your glutes as you work and focus on the quality of each rep.

The combination of these two approaches allows you to work on your glutes with maximum impact.

Reason 2. You can’t feel the target muscle

To pump up your butt, you first need to feel the working muscle. If training is done mechanically or incorrectly, then instead of the desired place, there is a high risk of pumping up your legs or not gaining volume at all. Any exercise must be performed efficiently, thinking about its meaning and the operating muscle groups. It is better to perform 2-3 exercises efficiently than to do everything quickly and somehow.

Solution: at the very beginning of training, you need to switch off from extraneous thoughts and fully concentrate on the exercises, contracting or straining the muscle in time with the action. Under no circumstances should you talk to anyone or be distracted while performing the approach.

Bronwen Blunt

Nutrition and Strength Coach

You can't build a house without a foundation, so start with the "big" compound exercises - squats, deadlifts.

I see a lot of bikini athletes doing endless glute isolation and completely neglecting compound exercises in their programs. You won't build big, round buttocks by sitting on machines and doing endless reps all day. Build the foundation first, and after that, all other exercises will be more beneficial for your figure.

The three main exercises for strengthening and growing the buttocks are barbell squats, sumo deadlifts, and Bulgarian split squats.

Try adding some manipulation to your exercises to further challenge your muscles. For example, hold the glute contraction for 3-5 seconds at the top of the sumo lift at the end of each rep, or increase the negative phase (lowering the weight) to 5 seconds.

Reason 5. Poor sleep

The importance of sleep is often underestimated, but insomnia and other disorders worsen mood, reduce performance, and make the day joyless. I want to drop everything, hide in a dark corner and sleep. There is no strength or desire left for training. Muscle recovery worsens, up to a complete lack of progress.

Exit: sleep at least 8 hours. If you get up at six in the morning, then in the evening you need to go to bed at ten, no later. Sleeping until noon on a day off does not mean quality rest, after which you can feel completely exhausted. It is advisable to stick to your usual rise, shifting it on weekends by no more than 2 hours.

Paul Carter

Strength and Bodybuilding Coach

Stop relying on squats and deadlifts alone to build your glutes. They are "activated" during these complex movements, but for most people this is not enough - the leg muscles often do a lot more work.

Of course, for some, squats and deadlifts may be enough to get well-developed gluteal muscles. But most people will need more work.

What is the function of the gluteal muscles? The gluteus medius is responsible for stabilizing the hip and knee when we stand on one leg, as well as abducting the hip to the side. Therefore, split squats and flyes in a seated machine are not such a bad idea.

For split squats, pause at the end of each set for about 10 seconds without fully extending your leg—this will cause your gluteus medius to burn. You can also do back lunges with dumbbells and yes, you can do them in a Smith machine too.

When it comes to hip abduction, some say it's not functional, but if you want to build a big round butt, they work great. Just use them correctly: hold a pause of 5 seconds at the end of each repetition and do the eccentric phase (lowering the weight) for 5 seconds as well. When you reach failure, do 5 forced repetitions, helping yourself with your arms. Do 3 sets of 15 reps like this, plus 5 forced reps at the end of the set, and tell me if your glutes don't get destroyed.

As for the gluteus maximus muscle, its main job is hip extension. The glute bridge is great, but most people use too much weight, which prevents full hip extension and maximum gluteal contraction. So it's better to go with a lighter weight and do 20 reps with a 3-second pause at peak contraction on each rep to better activate your glutes and extend your time under load rather than go for a world record weight.

Make sure your toes and knees are slightly turned outward to help contract your glutes as much as possible.

Think about your ass

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You apparently do not know how to use this muscle during training. For example, when you get up from a chair or squat, you mainly use the strength of the quadriceps, and the buttocks are involved indirectly. You need to learn to engage your gluteal muscles. Try to think about the muscle you want to use rather than just going through the motions.

Tony Gentilcore

Strength Coach and Performance Expert

The answer is simple: whatever Bret Contreras advises is the best way to build a bigger glute.

The important thing here is not to be too “absolutist” in the exercises you gravitate towards. Some will say that for larger butts you need to do only glute bridges. Others will say that the only thing you need are heavy squats and deadlifts.

Actually, everything works. In the gluteal bridge, the muscles are maximally loaded in a reduced form. In squats and deadlifts - at the moment of stretching under load.

These are all important components to glute development, so stop arguing over semantics and realize that different things work differently. Try incorporating both into your program.

One of the protocols I use with my female clients is called the 5-10-15-20 method. The idea is to do four glute exercises, increasing the number of repetitions of each in sequence.

Workout A

1. Heavy squats or deadlifts - 5 reps per set

2. Kettlebell swings - 10 reps per set

3. Single leg glute bridge - 15 reps on each leg

4. Seated hip raises with band - 20 reps

Workout B

1. Heavy Glute Bridge with Barbell - 5 reps per set

2. Goblet Squats - 10 reps

3. Elevated Back Lunges - 15 reps on each leg

4. Side steps with band x 20 reps on each leg

Do one exercise after another with minimal rest.
“Heavy” exercises should not be performed to failure.
Rest 60 seconds at the end of one circuit and repeat 2-3 circuits.
Do this twice a week.

How to squat correctly to pump up your butt description and video

To achieve results, mandatory adherence to techniques and technologies is required.

All exercises should be done slowly, deliberately and consciously.
It is important to follow a sequence of techniques to ensure uniform load.
Do not overdo it with certain techniques.
If there is insufficient load, significant weight can be created.
Regular exercise is the key to success in this area.
Following the principles of proper nutrition will lead to results faster.

In the video you can see the basic rules and subtleties of performing exercises that will allow you to achieve an original and rational result in a short period of time.

Mark Dugdale

IFBB Pro Bodybuilder

My best advice for anyone who wants strong, great-looking glutes is to start every leg workout by activating and pre-exhausting your glutes. You'll see they perform better throughout the rest of your workout.

Here are a few of my top suggestions for butts:

Glute Bridge: Pause each rep for 2 seconds at peak muscle contraction.
Split squats with one leg on the bench: do drop sets (reducing the working weight several times per set as the muscle fatigues) with a pause of a few seconds at the end of the set.
Prowler push: Take long, slow, deliberate strides using moderate weights on a sled.

Try starting every leg workout with one of these exercises. Alternate between them because they all activate the glutes differently.

Variability

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If you only do squats, then sooner or later your body will get used to this type of load, and it will no longer be stressful for the muscles. Meanwhile, the buttocks can be “finished off” with various types of barbell rows, be it classic, sumo or Romanian. Try varying the width of your stance on squats or, for example, doing squats and stopping at the bottom for a couple of seconds. Your “fifth point” will definitely thank you. Don’t forget about working on the “explosion”. Have you seen the legs of sprinters? For sure. Therefore, feel free to add jump squats, jumping jacks, and jumping lunges to your arsenal. These exercises will simply break up your body, which is unaccustomed to stress, and provide a powerful stimulus for growth.

Lee Boyce

Strength Coach and Performance Expert

Sprinting is one of the best ways to target the entire posterior kinetic chain, including the glutes. Take some time to learn how to do it technically.

I like step lunges with dumbbells because of their one-sided load. You can vary your step width to better target your glutes: taking longer steps and leaning your torso forward can create more impact. Dumbbells are the best option for this exercise because they reduce stress on the lower back.

Finally, we can't talk about glutes without a glute bridge. The problem people have is lifting too much weight and doing it like a lifter. If you lift too much weight, you won't be able to hit your glutes in isolation—other muscles in your body will come in to help with the heavy load. So reduce the weight and do more repetitions, concentrating on the muscles.

You eat little protein and carbohydrates

To build muscle, the body needs building material - protein, which enters the body with food. Carbohydrates are also necessary: they provide the production of anabolic hormones necessary for muscle growth.

Strive for Evidence‑based recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: nutrition and supplementation to consume 1.8–2 g of protein per 1 kg of body weight. That is, if you weigh 60 kg, you need to eat at least 108 g of protein. For carbohydrates, consume 4–7 g per 1 kg of body weight.

Choose foods rich in fiber: cereals, whole grain bread, vegetables and unsweetened fruits. And avoid starchy and sweet foods, otherwise you may go overboard with calories and increase the amount of fat instead of muscles.

Include in your diet