Welcome to the world of UNALTERED exercises, where we focus on strengthening and sculpting the body to achieve overall fitness and vitality. Today we’re going to talk about all things glutes! Not only are glute muscles aesthetically pleasing but they also play a crucial role in overall body support and lower body strength, stability, and power. (Bonus – if you deal with back pain, strengthening your glutes could help alleviate a good chunk of the discomfort.) Let’s figure out why & how it’s a good idea to build some buns of steel and a peachy posterior.
The Benefits of Strong Glutes:
Having strong glutes goes beyond simply enhancing the appearance of your backside, though, there’s nothing wrong with simply wanting a peachy posterior if that’s your goal. For being some of the biggest and strongest muscle in the body, most of us have incredibly weak gluteal muscles. Our typical lifestyle dictates that we sit almost all day and have limited physical activity even if we have a consistent workout routine. This leads to back pain, knee pain, and overall tightness in the body along with poor mobility.
With proper training we can improve posture, strengthen abdominals, feel lighter in our gait, increase power, increase overall athletic performance, stabilize exercise movements, and improve running. Most importantly, we can improve the comfort of living in our own bodies throughout our daily lives. These powerful muscles provide numerous benefits for your overall fitness and well-being:
Enhanced Lower Body Performance: Strong glutes contribute to improved performance in activities such as walking, running, jumping, and lifting. They provide stability, power, and propulsion, allowing you to excel in various everyday activities and athletic endeavors.
Glute Anatomy:
Before we dive into the exercises, let's spend a few moments getting nerdy by understanding the anatomy of the glute muscles. Your booty consist of three main muscles:
Glute Work Exercise Movement Pattern Variations:
Phew! What does that even mean? It’s just a fancy way of say you should move your lower body in a few different directions in order to build a superiorly peachy pair. To effectively target and strengthen your glutes, it's essential to incorporate exercises that involve different movement patterns. Here are four key movement patterns and their related exercises:
Glute Training How To, Tips, Tricks, and Things to Consider:
Remember, every body is unique, and your body may respond differently to certain exercises. Your body may respond better to high reps and low weight or low reps and high weight. Listen to your body and adjust the weights and repetitions accordingly. Pay attention to when you feel the exercises the most and notice the results over time. Feel free to experiment and find what works best for you.
Growing a booty is not an overnight process. It takes consistency. However, there is a Magic Formula (shhh…this is an UNALTERED secret!): Effort + Consistency / Time = Success. Pretty straight forward and easy to understand, right?
This next tip goes for pretty much any exercise, but it’s especially important with glute training. Focus on engagement of the muscle before doing heavy weights. Active, Engage, Contract and Squeeze. (As our Digital Marketing Specialist likes to say, “An ugly butt in the gym equals a pretty butt in a bikini.”) As you become more advanced, get used to the movement patterns, and learn how to use the correct muscle groups you’ll be able to relax a bit on this rule. When weights get heavy it’s harder to specifically feel the exact muscles you’re training, because your stabilizer muscle will be firing like wild. When you reach this level, have no fear! You’ve trained your booty right and it knows what to do.
If you’re dealing with knee or back issues, glute training is an effective and efficient way to train the lower body. Take advantage of hip thrusts and glute bridges. Once you get the form and engagement figured out, they’ll quickly become your best friend.
For maximum peachy posterior progress, we suggest you train your glutes 3x/week. A great way to incorporate this into your lower body training split is: glutes, glutes and quads, glutes and hamstrings.
Perform 3-6 movements or exercises (thrust/bridge, squat/lunge, hinge/pull, abduction) per session. As you improve and feel confident with the basics, it’s a good idea to incorporate 1-2 exercises that are single leg movements. This will help you keep both sides of the body balanced.
The rep range for glute exercises is anywhere from 1 – 100. Yes, it’s a very broad answer but the “right” reps for your butt depend on you. We will mention, though, that the 6-12 rep range stimulates hypertrophy (AKA muscle growth). However, we’ve seen some people grow better with heavier weights (lower rep) & some with lighter weights (higher rep).
Whether you decide to use heavy weights or light weights all depends on YOU. What type of training do you enjoy? Make it fun and enjoyable for you. No matter what type of training style you choose, high reps or low reps, you’re still going to get about 90-95% of your maximum potential for glute growth as long as you stay consistent and put in true effort.
You’ve grown your booty and are happy with the results. Now what? Even when you reach your desired results or goal, keep going if you want to maintain those results. You don’t necessarily have to push as hard, but still make sure you’re putting in consistent effort.
Let’s talk about the appearance of your hips and glutes. First, hip dips are normal! (If you don’t know what we’re talking about, no worries, you’re beautiful. If you do know what we’re talking about, no stress, you’re beautiful, too!) They’re based on your individual anatomy of how your pelvis and femur attach. You can, however, make them less noticeable through development of your glutes and leaning out. Also, keep in mind, fat distribution on your hips and butt is based on your hormones, namely estrogen, and your individual genetic makeup.
Strong glutes are not only visually appealing but also essential for overall lower body strength, stability, and power. By incorporating booty exercises into your UNALTERED exercise routine, you can effectively target and strengthen your glute muscles, experiencing the benefits of improved performance, injury prevention, enhanced posture, and increased metabolism. Remember, each body is unique, so explore different exercises and variations to find what works best for you. Embrace the journey of sculpting and strengthening your glutes and enjoy the transformative results in your body and overall well-being.
Try this workout next time you hit the gym for a glute day:
Kettlebell Sumo Squat 3 x 15
Cable Kickback 3 x 10-12 each side
Cable Lateral Leg Lifts 3 x 10-12 each side
Barbell Glute Bridge 4 x 10-15
Dumbbell Split Squats 3 x 10-12 each side
Banded Step Out Squats 3 x 8-10 each side
Hyperextension For Glutes (rounded back) 3 x 10-12
Try this workout & tag us @unaltered_athletics and #WeAreUnaltered so we can see your awesomeness!
Don't forget your UNALTERED Slim Tighten Tone to help wittle your middle while you boost your booty.
Phew! 🥵 We can see that hourglass shape from here!
