Ladies, it's time to build your booty! As you know I LOVE training glutes, maybe too much and at the exclusion of other important body parts but let's just pretend we didn't say that 🤭

Keep reading to find out some of my best booty building training tips and workouts so you can get into summer 2022 feeling your peachiest 🍑 and while you're at it lets work together on your spring fitness goals! Tap here to join my best selling Booty Builder plan - jam packed with more tips, training methods, workouts, nutrition tips - everything you'll need to get to those goals.

TRAINING TIPS

When you're trying to make 🍑 gains there are some important training strategies you can use to target your glutes specifically and change your workouts from being leg (quad/hamstring) dominant to glute dominant!

1. Practice mind to muscle connection - as a beginner to mind to muscle connection something you can do to practice is to practice your glute dominant exercises with a particular focus on squeezing and stabilizing the movement with your glutes. I would suggest practicing with no weight so you can establish the neural pathways to be able to add solid mind to muscle connection during your exercises
2. Glute activation - like the above, glute activation is a form of establishing mind to muscle connection prior to starting your workout. I do glute activation in two ways, no weight/body weight with a band or light weight + a band, the latter being more advanced. Start your workout with a warm up that has a primary movement that is in your workout - for example if your workout has a lot of thrust movements (where you are required to thrust your hips forward using your glutes i.e. hip thrusts, glute bridges etc) you should do a warm up with bands that uses that movement like banded glute bridges with abductions with a light or no weight. I usually do 1-2 sets of glute activation warm ups or whatever makes me feel like I've established a solid mind to muscle connection. This also helps warm up your primary movement before you even start!
3. Proper form - this is an underrated tool to get more glute dominance, when you do an exercise without the proper form for your goal you risk losing the benefits that exercise has on its particular target muscles. The key here is proper form for your goal. And yes of course, poor form can result in injury. Some common form tips for glute activation include toes pointing out - this helps with hip bone abduction in most lower body exercises which helps activate more parts of the glutes. This also means abduction movement - meaning knees opening out to the side so for example in squats, leg press etc you should focus on your knees tracking out over your toes which are also pointed out.
4. Loaded glute dominant exercises - as we all know, growing muscle takes heavy weight! Find the exercise that you feel the most glute activation in, or the one that you can do mind to muscle connection the best with and LOAD IT UP! If you have trouble with mind to muscle connection but can find a glute dominant exercise that works good for you use that for your glute growth and mind to muscle connection practice. As you get stronger bigger glutes you will find them more present during other exercises that you once couldn’t feel them in.

 Now, that we went over some of my tips lets talk about the glute dominant exercises I LOVE and the form that helps activate your glutes!

HIP THRUSTS  - preform with heels within arms reach away from your glutes keeping the weighted load in your heels - pressure through your heels recruits your posterior chain muscles (hamstrings and glutes). Make sure your pelvis is tilted under (posterior pelvic tilt) and this tilt is maintained throughout the entire movement not just at the top squeeze!

SINGLE LEG THRUSTS with heels arms length away, weighted load in the heels, hips tucked under (posterior pelvic tilt) maintained throughout the movement.

Elevated GLUTE BRIDGES - I choose these over regular glute bridges. Elevate your feet to achieve a longer range of motion. Set up with heels arms length away weighted load in the heels with hips tucked under (posterior tilt) maintained throughout the movement.

RDLS instead of deadlifts. Make sure to also maintain pelvic tilt in this exercise your glutes should always be squeezing forward even when you're at the top - don't round your lower back. Push through your heels and sit back into the glutes with a slight bend in your knees.

SQUATS with a rotated outward toe placement and slightly wider stance (not sumo), with forward hinge. Bend forward more (maintain a hinge) during the squat while still sitting back in your heels to target your glutes more. Point your toes out rather than keeping them parallel.

REVERSE LUNGES with forward hinge. Bend forward into your lunge more to emphasize the hinge during the movement this will recruit more glutes. Keep the weight in your heel. Reverse lunges are better for glute activation than forward lunges.

Add some of these exercises to your next lower body day and practice the form prompts and you should be feeling these much more in your glutes!

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