How to grow your legs (glutes edition)
Nikola Man
Today is finally the day when we talk about building a nice thick booty. As is now the norm, we will start off with some anatomy.
The glutes are composed of 3 main muscles, but we will only talk about the bigger two.
Gluteus Maximus is the biggest muscle in the human body and that’s why it receives the most attention. However, Gluetus Medius is approximately half the weight of Gluteus Maximus and we will go against logic here and cover the Medius muscle first.
Gluteus Medius usually has more slow-twitch fibers meaning that it responds better to higher repetitions. It can be targeted directly through hip abduction (moving away from the center of the body). You can imagine a whole host of movements that move your legs (and glutes) laterally. In addition, this muscle has a major stabilization role in our body so if you want to target it you should consider doing one-legged exercises or walking lunges.
Glute Maximus helps in many types of movements due to its size and position so it should be trained through various movements. Squats, while king of quad development, are not the best glute builder. However, you can have a wider stance with your feet pointing out in order to elicit more glute activation. Deadlifts are also an awesome exercise, but keep in mind that it is a very taxing movement and it might be a bit better for strength development rather than physique development. Hip thrusts are really the king of glute development and if your goal is to maximize glute development you pretty much have to include them in your routine.
Just to be noted up front, squats do not count as direct work for glutes
Volume time:
Just to be noted up front, squats do not count as direct work for glutes.
Minimum volume (MV)
If you want to maintain your current glute size, you basically do not have to do any direct work. If you do leg training in the form of squats, stiff-legged deadlifts, good mornings as well as heavy back work with bent over rows, your glutes definitely get enough of a stimulus to maintain size.
Minimum-effective volume (MEV)
If you want get at least some growth for your glutes, you should do somewhere between 0 and 4 sets of direct work. Some people will be able to grow their glutes by doing indirect work only, some less genetically fortunate individuals will have to include a couple of sets of hip thrusts or deadlifts.
Maximum recoverable volume (MRV)
Since Gluteus Maximus is the largest muscle in the body, it can recover from a lot of work. MRV, for most people, is usually around 16-18 sets. That is 16-18 sets of direct work on top of everything that activates glutes indirectly.
Intensity and frequency
I would like to split intensity into 3 categories this time around. Firstly, I want to discuss the so-called stretcher exercises which you should be doing fairly heavy with 5-8 reps. Stretcher exercises are squats (discussed in the quad article) and deadlifts of any kind. Note that you need a lot of time to recover from these, so you should get 3 or maybe even 4 days between sessions where you do them.
Next we have activator exercises which you should be doing with the focus on activating the muscle (shocking, right?). The list includes, hip thrusts, barbell glute bridges, back extensions and cable pull throughs. You should do these with slightly lighter weight than the stretcher exercises and get somewhere between 8 and 12 (maybe 15) reps.
Lastly, we have the pumper exercises, which you guessed it, are done with the lightest weights because you are supposed to go for the pump through many reps. Do somewhere between 12 and 30 reps on frog pumps, elevated glute bridges, machine hip abductions and many other light exercises.
You have probably realized by now that frequency is always at least 2 times per week and glutes are no different. However, I do recommend 3 weekly sessions to those who are truly seeking to maximize the size of their butt.
Exercise selection
Stretcher exercises
Activator exercises
Hip thrust (the king of glute building)
Pumper exercises
Tips for making a program
Surprisingly, I do not have much to tell you here. I want you to make sure to do the following 4 things:
Focus on steady progression. You don’t have to be increasing the load on the bar every week but on a month-to-month and especially year-to-year basis you should be getting stronger. That should be your primary goal, picking a couple of exercises that really work for you and then slowly adding weight to them over time. Quite frankly, this should be the goal for any muscle group you are trying to grow, but it is especially true for glutes
If you want to develop your booty, do hip thrusts. As simple as that
Do not neglect the Gluteus Medius movements. Developing this muscle will have carryover to other exercises and it will provide much needed stability when walking or running
Don’t worry too much about variation because there are so many exercises as you can see above, but you also have variety in terms of intensity/repetition ranges
Other important comments
This section is going to be record-breaking short. Follow Bret Contreras on all of his platforms. He is called “The Glute Guy” for very good reason. Here are his platforms: