With the massive growth of fitspo on social media there are tons of images online urging girls to get building a perfect peach. You may glance at these and sigh wishing you were the love child of Kim Kardashian and Beyoncé. But newsflash, glutes are a muscle, and muscles can be built and sculpted regardless of genetics.
First thing’s first, food.
Just like any muscle group the glutes need to be fed with protein and carbs- yes that’s right, carbs. Contrary to the media preaching carbs are the devil, carbs in fact have a huge part to play in building lean muscle.
To be building muscle you need to be eating at a calorie surplus (more than your TDEE) or at least your TDEE if you are wanting to lose fat and gain muscle.
To work out your TDEE (amount of calories you must eat to maintain weight) head over to IIFYM.
Now for the fun part, booty building exercises.
Squats and deadlifts are great for building up glutes, however whilst completing these exercises you are also working your quads, hamstrings, lower back etc.
To really build your glutes it is SO important to do exercises which really activate and isolate the glutes. Personally I would avoid doing body weight exercises unless it is for a warm up or superset. If you are worried about heading into the weights room (not that you need to be) you can use light dumbbells in place of barbells.
I have seen a ton of these online from some of my favourite YouTube channels Robin Gallant and Heidi Somers and others so I will put some of my favourites here!
- Barbell Hip Thrust
This exercise is very simple. Using either the leg extension machine, or barbell, thrust upwards using your hips, keeping your back straight and squeezing your glutes at the top.
2. Abductor Squat
Pretty straightforward, squat down whilst pushing out with legs and keeping your core held tight (and trying not to look like a porn star).
3. Bulgarian Split Squat
These can be done using a barbell, smith machine or using dumbells in each hand. Place one leg on a bench behind and lunge keeping your back straight.
4. Sideways Leg Press
Again, this is a very straight forward exercise which targets the outer glutes creating a nice round booty *heart eye emoji*.
5. Cable Kickback
Place one leg onto a step and hold onto the cable machine. Attach the strap to your ankle and kick your leg backwards.
6. Smith Machine Donkey Kick
Bend down on a bench and place the bar level with your foot. Kick your leg back and upwards in a donkey kick motion.
7. Romanian Deadlift
Similar to a normal deadlift, keep your legs straight-ish (not locked out but not fully bent) and drop the weight to your ankles really pushing your glutes out and keeping your chest up.
8. Barbell Lunge
As easy as it sounds, lunge backwards alternating each leg. Again, you can use a barbell or the smith machine.
9. Barbell Curtsey Lunge
Using a barbell or the smith machine, hold the bar on your back and simply place one leg behind the other in a curtsy movement.
10. Assisted Pull Up Machine Push Downs (?)
That long-winded title is the last way I could describe this last exercise. Simply push down on the machine with your leg and *voila*
Hope you enjoyed this post or at least found it helpful. As I said none of this will be new to anyone but I just wanted to put all the great stuff I’d seen other people post into one place! Next post will be on eating clean at university. Bye for now X
DIONNELIFTS 