The Booty Bible

The Complete Scientific Guide to Maximizing the Glu-

teus Maximus and Building a Toned, Sexy Butt
By John Fawkes

Part 1: Anatomy of the Butt - Page 2

Part 2: The Four Biggest Booty-Building Mistakes - Page 5

Part 3: Eight Advanced Glute Training Techniques - Page 9

Part 4: Glute Training Intensity, Volume & Frequency - Page 14

Part 5: The Best Booty-Building Exercises - Page 18

Part 6: The Last Glute Workouts You’ll Ever Need - Page 22

Final Thoughts- Page 26

 Part 1: Anatomy of the Butt
People often think that gluteus maximus is synonymous with butt. In fact, the gluteus
maximus is merely one of many muscles in the butt, as you can see in these diagrams:

To build a juicy, well-toned ass, you need to train all of these muscles. That means you
need to perform a variety of movements, including some that most people wouldn’t think
of as butt-building movements.

Here’s a quick run-down of the major muscles of the gluteal region:

Gluteus maximus- The biggest muscle in the butt, the gluteus maximus lies on top of
most of the other butt muscles. This tricks a lot of people into thinking the gluteus max-
imus is synonymous with the whole muscle group- in fact, building the muscles around
and underneath it are just as important as building the gluteus maximus itself.
Its main function is hip extension, i.e. kicking your leg backwards- a responsibility it
shares with the hamstrings. The hamstrings are stronger than the glutes when the leg
is relatively straight. When the knee is bent, the hamstrings become very weak and the
gluteus maximus takes over. The fibers in the very bottom of the gluteus maximus also
contribute to hip adduction- pushing your thighs together.

The gluteus maximus is slightly slow-twitch dominant, meaning it is best worked with a
slightly higher than average rep range, or a slightly lower than average intensity.

Gluteus medius- This muscle lies above the gluteus maximus- as in slightly higher up
the body, not on top of the gluteus maximus. It is only visible from the outside when
well-developed. It wraps around to the front of the hips, making it the only muscle in the
butt that can be visible from the front.

A well-developed gluteus medius makes your hips appear wider, which also makes your
waist look slimmer by contrast. This may or may not be desirable, depending on what
sort of figure you’re trying to build. To put it another way- building the gluteus maximus
will make your butt bigger from front to back while building the gluteus medius will make
your butt look bigger from side to side.

The gluteus medius is responsible for rotating the hip both internally and externally, but
those movements are hard to practically train- your only options are some weird cabe
and band exercises that don’t have good strength curves. Its main function is hip ab-
duction- moving your legs apart- when your legs are straight, and that’s the main
movement you’ll use to train it. Like the gluteus maximus, it’s slightly slow-twitch domi-
nant.

Gluteus minimus- The gluteus minimus lies underneath the gluteus maximus and
medius. It’s never visible, and as such it is of less aesthetic concern. Building it up will
make your but look bigger, but won’t contribute to muscle definition at all.

The gluteus minimus contributes to hip extension and abduction, which means you’ll
train it when you train the gluteus maximus and medius, and you don’t need to pick ex-
ercises specifically to train this muscle. Like the others, it’s slightly slow-twitch domi-
nant.

All the other small muscles- I’lll address these as a group. The other muscles of the
butt lie underneath the glutes and contribute nothing to the appearance of muscle defini-
tion, and only contribute slightly to the apparent size of your butt and hips. They are
more important from the standpoint of functional strength than aesthetics. Like the
glutes, they’re mostly slightly slow-twitch dominant.

The piriformis contributes to hip abduction- pushing the legs apart. But whereas the
glutes mainly abduct the hips while your leg is straight, the piriformis comes into action
when your legs are bent, i.e. in a seated position. More on this later.
The other little muscles mainly contribute to balance, particularly when you’re balancing
on one leg. You don’t need to train them specifically, but you will train them.

tl;dr: There are a lot of muscles in the posterior region, but the two you need to
concern yourself with are the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius.
 Part 2: The Six Biggest Booty-Building Mistakes

Now that you have a basic understanding of the muscular anatomy of the posterior re-
gion, you’re equipped to understand some of the big mistakes that otherwise knowl-
edgable trainees make in trying to build a toned, muscular butt.

Mistake #1: Not working every muscle in the butt

As you saw in the previous section, the various gluteal muscles are responsible for sev-
eral different movement patterns, and you need to train all of those movement patterns
to build a world-class butt.

The mistake many people make is only working the gluteus maximus. Actually, it’s
worse than that- they only train part of the gluteus maximus. As mentioned earlier, the
bottom-most fibers of the gluteus maximus are used in hip adduction- failure to train this
movement pattern is the reason so many women have butts that mostly look good, but
lack muscle tone on the bottom where the butt meets the thighs.

The fix: Better glute exercise selection

Plain and simple, you need to be doing the right exercises, and you need to be doing a
variety of exercises to hit each muscle.

Exercises for the main part of the gluteus maximus- Glute-ham raises. The bottom
portion of back and front squats. Hip thrusts. Glute kickbacks.

Exercises for the bottom of the gluteus maximus- Standing or seated hip adduction.

Exercises for the gluteus medius- Hip abduction, but only in a standing- not a seated-
position. The cable unilateral hip abduction, for instance.

Exercises for the gluteus minimus- As mentioned earlier, you don’t need to worry
about this.

Exercises for the piriformis- Standing or seated hip adduction.

Mistake #2: Emphasizing the Thighs at the Expense of the Glutes

The glutes are mostly used in the same exercises as the muscles of the thighs. Many
people focus on compound movements because they give more bang for your buck
than isolation movements. While this is generally a good principle to follow, it can easily
lead to under-training the glutes because every glute exercise you do is actually a thigh
exercise first and a glute exercise second.
In a sense, this is actually two different mistakes: training the quads at the expense of
the glutes, and training the hams at the expense of the glutes. So there are several
things you need to do to fix this.

Fix #1: Use a full range of motion with squats and leg presses

Squatting is awesome and you should definitely be doing it. But the glutes only come
into action at the bottom of the squat, so you need to squat deep to really work your
glutes.

Part of the reason people don’t squat deep enough is because the bottom of the squat
is the hardest part- it tends to be the sticking point. What happens a lot of times is that
people will subconsciously avoid this sticking point, making their squats shallower and
shallower with each rep and thus underworking the glutes. More on sticking points in a
bit.

Fix #2: Bent-knee exercises

As mentioned earlier, hip extension primarily depends on the hamstrings when the leg is
straight, and the glutes when the knee is bent. Failure to understand this leads many
lifters to have underdeveloped glutes, despite having strong hamstrings and doing a lot
of “glute exercises.” Good bent-knee exercises include hip thrusts and glute kickbacks.

Fix #3: Isolation movements

Yes, compound movements are king, but to fully train the glutes, you’ll need to work a
few isolation movements in. However, there’s a right way and a wrong way to incorpo-
rate isolation movements, which I’ll get to in a bit.

Mistake #3: Pre-fatiguing the Glutes

I used to be a big proponent of pre-fatiguing. If you’re not familiar with the term, pre-fa-
tiguing, or pre-exhaustion, is a form of superset or exercise ordering in which an isola-
tion exercise is used before a compound exercise that works the same muscle- hip
thrusts before squats, for instance. The idea is that the muscle will be fatigued from the
isolation movement, then further exhausted in the compound movement, where other
muscles will give it a boost and allow it to be worked for more volume.

The problem is, studies have shown that pre-fatiguing a muscle reduced muscle activa-
tion in the subsequent compound movement. Yes, those squats will feel like they’re
blasting your glutes, but only because your glutes are weakened at that point- they’ll ac-
tually be less productive than if you hadn’t pre-exhausted your glutes. Not only that, but
since the weakened glutes become a sticking point for the squat, your squats will do
less to build your legs and lower back as well.
The fix: Post exhaustion

In this case, your best option is to do the exact opposite: work the glutes with compound
movements, then work them more with isolation movements.

Mistake #4: Getting Hung Up on Exercise Sticking Points

What do I mean by sticking points? I mean the part of the exercise that’s hardest. Most
exercises have one part of the movement that’s harder than the rest, and this part is al-
most always the part where you hit failure.

With most pressing movements like squats and leg presses, it’s the bottom of the
movement- if you squat with a full range of motion, you’ll eventually get stuck at the bot-
tom of the squat, unable to get back up. Now this sounds like it might be desirable for
glute training, since the bottom of the movement emphasizes the glutes, but it isn’t.
Most people consciously or subconsciously avoid that sticking point, either by doing
fewer reps than they should or by gradually making their squats shallower as their
glutes get fatigued. All of the muscles involved in the squat- even the glutes- would get
trained better if the sticking point wasn’t there.

To fix this, you’ll need to match the exercise’s strength curve ti its resistance curve, so
that no particular point in the movement becomes a sticking point.

The fix: Accomodating resistance training

Accommodating resistance is the technical term for resistance that is lower at the hard-
est part of a movement and higher at easier parts of the movement. In practice, this is
achieved by replacing about 20% of the barbell weight with chains or elastic bands.
Since chains are heavy and not fun to carry around, you’ll probably want to use bands.

A meta-analysis showed that using accommodating resistance leads to significantly

greater strength gains in the bench press and squat. And the effects were huge- one
study found that adding resistance bands tripled the amount of strength and power that
trained subjects gained in the squat compared to a control group.

You’ll need a squat rack, which you should be using anyway for safety, and a pair of re-
sistance bands. Note that those bands are sold singly- you’ll need to order two. The
listed resistances are the amount applied when the band is minimally and maximally
stretched, respectively.

The bands can be attached to the top or bottom of the rack, but are usually attached to
the bottom since that’s easier to reach. This video shows how to attach the bands. On
the next page you’ll find a photo of what the bands should look like when fully attached.
PICTURED: PROPER RESISTANCE BAND SETUP FOR THE BACK
SQUAT
 Part 3: Eight Advanced Glute Training Techniques

Now that you’ve learned to avoid some of the biggest mistakes people make in glute
training, there are a lot of other techniques you can use to improve the training stimulus
applied to your glutes. Here are eight of them- that’s probably more than you need, so
consider this a toolbox of things you can use rather than a list of things you must do.

Technique #1: Cluster Sets

A cluster set is a set that is divided into two or more (typically no more than four) sub-
sets, with short rests between them. The advantage of cluster sets is that they allow
you to perform more reps per set at a given intensity, producing superior gains in
strength and power while also allowing you to get through your workout faster.

Here’s one example of how a cluster set might look in practice. Let’s say you’re squat-
ting at 85% of your one-rep max- a weight you can normally lift for about five or six reps.
You perform three reps, then re-rack the weight and rest for ten seconds. Then you un-
rack the weight and do three more reps, re-rack and rest again. Finally you unrack the
barbell and do three more reps. You’ve just completed nine reps at a weight you could
normally only do five reps with.

Since total training volume is the main driver of growth, cluster sets are a great tool for
doing more work without having to spend hours in the gym.

Cluster sets are only useful when you’re working at high intensities, like 80-90% of your
one-rep max. That means you can’t use them for every exercise, and you’ll mostly use
them for compound movements. They have some use with isolation movements- par-
ticularly unilateral ones where you can work one side of the body while the other side
rests- but only isolation movements that target fast-twitch dominant muscles like the
hamstrings.

Cluster sets also seem to mainly be beneficial for strength and power, and have only a
marginal direct benefit on size. We’re mainly concerned with size here, so that means
we won’t rely too heavily on cluster sets. But they’re useful for three reasons.

First, gaining strength in a muscle means it can do more work and therefore build more
mass down the road. In the long run, more strength means more mass.

Second, cluster sets can be used to thoroughly pre-exhaust antagonistic muscles- a

technique I’ll cover in a few pages.

Third, using cluster sets with exercises like squats helps you to maintain a full range of
motion. See Mistake #2 above- the tiny bit of rest takes away much of the impetus to
subconsciously avoid the bottom of the movement.
Technique #2: Autoregulatory Volume Training

The typical approach to doing sets is to have a target number of reps you’ll perform, and
raise the weight when you’re able to do all of your planned sets for the given number of
reps.

Autoregulated volume training works a little differently- instead of counting reps on

every set, you count reps on the first set only. That first set is your “benchmark set.” On
subsequent sets, you don’t count reps; instead, you stop the set when you reach the
same proximity to failure as you did on the benchmark set.

AVT increases force production throughout each set after the first, for a couple of rea-
sons. First, not counting reps allows you to focus on your technique. Second, counting
reps can cause you to subconsciously hold back on the early reps in a set in order to
conserve your energy for later and thus reducing muscle activation; AVT prevents this.

AVT can be used with any exercise at any intensity. The main caveat is that you need
to be motivated to push yourself. If you’ll use not counting reps as an excuse to slack
off, you should stick with the traditional approach of having rep targets for every set.

In workouts, AVT is notated as “X number of sets at Y% of 1RM,” i.e. “4 sets at 80%

1RM.” You should record how many reps you perform on the first set- when that num-
ber goes up by 20-30%, it’s time to raise the weight. You should also re-calibrate every
month or two by re-testing your 1RM.

Technique #3: Post-Activation Potentiation

From the NSCA website: Postactivation Potentiation (PAP) is the phenomenon by which
the contractile history of muscles directly affects their subsequent rate of force devel-
opment (RFD) or the ability to generate force in a rapid manner. In plain English: after
you perform a strength exercise with a given muscle or group of muscles, there’s a brief
window in which those same muscles actually generate more power than they could
have before you did the strength set.

The distinction between strength and power is crucial here. Strength means lifting
heavy- in practical terms, usually around 80-90% of 1RM. Power means lifting fast.
Power exercises typically use the heaviest weight you can use without compromising on
speed, which is generally very light, around 30-60% of 1RM.

An example of PAP training in action would be to perform a set of heavy barbell squats,
then rack the weight and immediately do a set of jump squats. PAP training improves
power production by causing neural adaptations- meaning it doesn’t directly do very
much to build mass. It also produces a lot of neural fatigue. Since neural fatigue takes
around 20 minutes to recover from, a PAP superset should be the last thing you do for a
given muscle in a given workout.
Technique #4: Antagonist Pre-Exhaustion

I said earlier that pre-exhausting a muscle before working it even more- as in doing hip
thrusts before squats- was a bad idea. That would be agonist pre-exhaustion. Antago-
nist pre-exhaustion would be fatiguing one muscle before doing a set with the opposing
muscle.

Antagonist pre-exhaustion has been validated in many studies, but there seem to be
certain circumstances in which it works best. One study found that pre-exhausting the
hamstrings with leg curls before working the quads with leg extensions worked better
than doing the leg extensions first. It seems that this technique works best when the
more fast-twitch dominant muscle is pre-exhausted before the more slow-twitch domi-
nant muscle, probably because slow-twitch fibers recover so quickly that it’s hard to ef-
fectively pre-exhaust them.

For glute training, the application of antagonist pre-exhaustion would be to fatigue the
(very fast-twitch dominant) hamstrings before training the glutes. For this to work, you
need to superset the two exercises, taking as little rest as possible between the first and
second exercise.

Technique #5: Daily Undulating Periodization

Daily undulating periodization is a progression scheme in which a given exercise is per-

formed at two different intensities on different days. For instance, if you have hip thrusts
in one workout, you might alternate between training that movement at 80% 1RM and
70% 1RM each time you do that workout.

Daily undulating periodization has generally been shown to produce superior strength
gains in experienced trainees, as compared to both linear and no periodization. It
seems to have less of a benefit for hypertrophy, but again, in the long run more strength
means more mass.

That’s for experienced trainees- in novice trainees, DUP may actually be harmful, since
it produces more muscle damage that slows recovery. Therefore, it should only be used
by intermediate to advanced trainees.

Technique #6: Reactive De-Loading

The traditional approach to deloading is to take a deload week every X number of

weeks, usually every 4-6 weeks. The degree of deloading varies, from not working out
at all, to doing light weight power workouts, to doing the same workouts with fewer sets.
But in any case, this approach is arbitrary and one-size-fits-all.
Reactive de-loading accomplishes the same thing in a way that is totally customized to
you and your ability to recover from your workouts, and applied on a per-muscle rather
than a whole-body basis. Instead of scheduling deloads ahead of time, you take a brief
deload whenever you can tell that a given muscle hasn’t recovered sufficiently from your
last workout.

This deload is applied by lowering the weight by 20-40% and performing your remaining
sets for that exercise as power sets. As an example, supposed your workout calls for 4
sets of squats at 85% of 1RM. You’re using the same weight you did on your last work-
out- 195 pounds- and on the last workout you were able to do 5 reps on the first set.

On your first set of this workout you are only able to perform 4 reps, so you know you
haven’t recovered very well from the last workout. You lower that weight from 195
pounds to 135. You then complete the remaining three sets as planned, but with the
lighter weight, and at high speed.

The use of a lower weight minimizes muscle damage so you can recover better from
this workout, while the higher speed maintains high levels of muscle activation despite
the lower weight. That’s why power work is often used as a form of active recovery.

The advantage of reactive deloading- particularly in combination with AVT- is that it al-
lows you to push yourself hard while regulating the training volume so that you avoid
inflicting more fatigue on yourself than you’re able to recover from. Using this method,
you hardly ever need to take planned, traditional deloads. I find most intermediate to
advanced trainees using these methods only need to take a 3-4 day full deload every 2-
4 months.

Note that reactive deloading can be used with AVT, but can only be applied following the
first set, since the first set is the only one where you’re counting reps.

Technique #7: Iso-Lateral Movements

Net time you’re at the gym, try a little experiment. Find your one-rep max for leg exten-
sions. Then rest a few minutes, and then find your one-rep max for iso-lateral leg ex-
tensions.

If you can lift 100 pounds with both legs, you’d think that you would only be able to lift
50 pounds with one leg, right? But what you’ll find is that in fact, you can lift more like
60 or 70 pounds with one leg. Your strength with one limb is more than half of your
strength with two limbs.

The exact reasons for this are a bit murky, but appear to be central nervous system me-
diated. In other words, using one limb at a time allows your brain to focus more fully on
that one limb. It’s also worth noting that most natural movements that we perform are
not symetrical in the way that many weight lifting movements are. When you jump, or
pass a basketball, you usually have one foot forward, for instance.

This phenomenon is called bi-lateral deficit. All other things being equal, iso-lateral
movements will produce greater gains than their bi-lateral equivalent, so we’ll use iso-
lateral movements whenever possible.

Technique #8: Work the Butt First

If you have one body part that you want to focus on, you should train that body part to-
wards the beginning of your workouts.

The first reason for this is widely agreed upon: fatigue. You get more tried as a workout
goes on, so the exercises performed earlier in the workout are, on average, more pro-
ductive than later exercises.

The second reason is controversial: working a muscle early in the workout boosts blood
flow to that region. The workout will then preferentially burn fat in that region. That’s
right, I’m talking about spot reduction. Or more specifically, spot lipolysis.

When you train a muscle, you acutely raise lipolysis (fat burning) in the tissue around
that muscle. But does this translate into spot reduction in the long run? Yes, but mainly
if you’re losing fat overall. Several studies have demonstrated spot reduction- a 2017
study found that upper body training burned more fat in the upper body and lower body
training burned more fat in the lower body.

Other studies have mostly failed to find spot reduction in subjects who didn’t lose fat
overall. So if you’re losing fat, you can lose fat faster in one part of your body, but it’s
hard (though still possible) to lose fat from only one body part.

This could work in reverse too though- if you’re in a calorie surplus, you’ll probably gain
more fat in the body parts you train more. So this can be used to add or subtract fat
from your buttocks, depending on preference.

If you want to lose more fat from your butt to build better muscle definition, you need to
be in a calorie deficit when you work out. Your pre-workout nutrition should consist of
20-40 grams of protein within an hour before the workout, and very little else. If you
want to add more cushion for the pushin’, you should instead have a large pre-workout
meal. Bear in mind that this is based on whether your body is in a surplus or deficit at
the time you’re working out, not overall.

Either way, training your glutes early in your workouts will produce greater glute hyper-
trophy, so you should do that regardless of whether you want to gain, lose, or maintain
fat mass in that region.
Part 4: Optimal Glute Training Intensity, Volume & Fre-
quency
Optimal glute training volume and frequency depend on how well-developed your glutes
are. To determine that, test your strength-endurance on the barbell hip thrust.

Novice glutes: Bodyweight x 10-20 reps

Intermediate glutes: 45-105 lbs x 8-15 reps

Advanced glutes: 115-185 lbs x 8-15 reps

Elite glutes: 195+ lbs x 8-15 reps

Optimal Glute Training Intensity

As mentioned earlier, all of the muscles in your butt are slightly slow-twitch dominant,
which means they should be worked at a slightly lower weight and higher rep range.
However, “higher” is a relative term- studies have shown that lifting heavier weights-
over 65% of your one-rep max, and probably even heavier- is generally better than lift-
ing lighter weights.

It’s common to err in either direction- too heavy or too light. Most commonly I see men
going too heavy and women going too light. Some people also don’t seem to realize
that, for practical purposes, isolation movements need to be done at lower intensities
than compound movements.

The optimal intensity for most people is around 75-90% of one-rep max for compound
movements, and 60-75% of one-rep max for isolation movements. Because women are
more slow-twitch dominant than men, they tend to get the best results at slightly lower
intensities than men. Now add in the fact that the glutes are slightly slow-twitch domi-
nant and the use of DUP, and most women training their glutes should be a little to-
wards the lower ends of those ranges.

I should add that there is substantial inter-individual variation in optimal training intensi-
ty. While most people will fall into the range I just gave, some will do better at intensities
as high as 90% for compound movements, while others may see the best results at in-
tensities as low as 60%.

Determining your optimal intensity range is a complicated subject however- I do that

with my personal training clients, but it’s beyond the scope of this guide. Suffice to say,
the range given will work for you, even if you’re in the minority of people for whom it’s
not entirely optimal.
Optimal Glute Training Volume

Total training volume should be calculated on a per-muscle-per-week basis. Optimal

training volume for all muscles goes up as you get more advanced, so advanced
trainees should train a lot more than novice trainees.

Training age- whether you’re novice, intermediate, or advanced- should be considered

on a per-muscle basis. There are a lot of guys who have advanced pecs and novice
hamstrings, and a lot of women who have advanced glutes and novice shoulders.

Aside from training age, there are a few other considerations in determining total train-
ing volume for a muscle.

Fiber type mix should be taken into consideration- slow-twitch dominant muscles recov-
er faster and can tolerate a little more volume than fast-twitch dominant muscles. Re-
member, the glutes are slightly slow-twitch dominant, but not all that far off from aver-
age.

Gender and genetics make a difference. Women are more slow-twitch dominant than
men and can tolerate somewhat higher training volume and frequency. ACE genotype
also makes a difference, if you’ve had a DNA test.

But the biggest factor to consider besides training age is stress level. Very high stress
levels- and the high cortisol levels that accompany them- will impede your recovery from
exercise. The difference between very high and very low stress can be as much as a
twofold difference in recovery capacity.

With that said, here are some guidelines:

Novice glutes:
Low stress: 14-16 sets per week
Medium stress: 12-14 sets per week
High stress: 10-12 sets per week

Intermediate glutes:
Low stress: 18-22 sets per week
Medium stress: 16-20 sets per week
High stress: 14-18 sets per week

Advanced glutes:
Low stress: 22-26 sets per week
Medium stress: 20-24 sets per week
High stress: 18-22 sets per week
Elite glutes:
Low stress: 24-28 sets per week
Medium stress: 22-26 sets per week
High stress: 20-24 sets per week

Beyond considerations of stress and training age, you may need to do some self-exper-
imentation to gauge your work and recovery capacities and figure out which weekly vol-
ume works best for you.

One last note about total volume is how to count it. A set of an exercise which focuses
on the glutes, like the hip thrust, counts as one set. A set of an exercise which works
the glutes for only part of the range of motion or only uses them secondarily, like squats,
counts as half a set towards weekly glute volume.

With all of that considered- most people reading this should probably be upping their
volume to get maximal results.

Optimal Glute Training Frequency

The optimal training frequency for a muscle mostly depends on the same factors as the
optimal total training volume- training age, genetics, stress, etc. A totally untrained
muscle takes 3-5 days to recover from a good workout, and should be trained only once
or twice a week. On the other end of the spectrum, elite trainees can usually recover in
less than 24 hours, and often benefit from twice a day training.

With that said, here are some rough guidelines for glute recovery times and training fre-
quency:

Novice glutes: Low stress: 40-64 hours recovery time, train every 2-3 days.
Medium Stress: 56-80 hours recovery time, train every 3-4 days.
High stress: 72-120 hours recovery time, train every 3-5 days.

Intermediate glutes: Low stress: 24-40 hours recovery time, train every 1-2 days.
Medium Stress: 36-60 hours recovery time, train every 2-3 days.
High stress: 48-80 hours recovery time, train every 2-4 days.

Advanced glutes: Low stress: 16-24 hours recovery time, train every day.
Medium Stress: 20-36 hours recovery time, train every 1-2 days.
High stress: 30-48 hours recovery time, train every 1-2 days.

Elite glutes: Low stress: 12-18 hours recovery time, train once or twice a day.
Medium Stress: 16-24 hours recovery time, train every day, occasionally twice a day.
High stress: 24-36 hours recovery time, train every 1-2 days.
Again, same considerations as with volume. I hope these guidelines will drive home the
importance of stress management. As you can see, keeping stress low has the equiva-
lent effect, in terms of recovery capacity, as being one to one and a half levels of ad-
vancement higher. An intermediate trainee with low stress will recover a little bit faster
than an advanced trainee with high stress.

Given that each “level” of muscular development equates to one to three years of con-
sistent, high-quality training, this is a huge difference.
PICTURED: YOUR BUTT ON CORTISOL

Part 5: The Best Booty-Building Exercises
Not all exercises are created equal. Many of the most popular glute exercises, are sub-
optimal. Here are some of the characteristics of a good exercise:

Full range of motion. A good exercise should make it possible to work the muscle
through the full range of motion. This is particularly important for the glutes, since many
exercises only bring the glutes into play when you go deep.

A full range of motion isn’t possible with some exercises. For instance, hip thrusts need
to be done from a deficit to allow a full range of motion, but it’s damn near impossible to
do barbell hip thrusts from a deficit, so barbell hip thrusts are not one of your best op-
tions.

Strength curve matches resistance curve. In other words, there’s no sticking point.
It’s hard to get this perfect, but if you’re only slightly weaker at the sticking point than at
other parts of the movement, that’s close enough. This is why you’ll use resistance
bands when you squat.

Closed chain, not open chain. The technical definition of the kinetic chain is, well,
pretty technical. But in practice it’s simple: Closed-chain movements are movements in
which your body moves. Open-chain movements are movements where your body
stays still while you push or pull a weight. Closed-chain movements are better, which is
why (well, one reason why) we’ll favor squats over leg presses.

Unilateral over bilateral. I’ve already covered this one. There are some bilateral
movements that are worth doing because they have no direct unilateral equivalent, but
six of the nine exercises I’m about to list are unilateral.

Dynamic contraction. Exercises that involve dynamic contraction- meaning the mus-
cle is actively contracting during both the concentric (raising) phase and the eccentric
(lowering pahse) - are superior to exercises that are only either concentric, eccentric, or
isometric. Concentric and eccentric contractions each stimulate muscle growth in
different ways, so you need both.

With that said, how many different exercises do you need to do for your glutes? As with
volume and frequency, the optimal amount of variety goes up with training age, but you
don’t need much- having one or two compound and one or two isolation movements in
your workout split at any given time is good enough, but a little more won’t hurt either.
I’m going to give you four compound and four isolation movements (in addition to one
exercise purely for pre-exhausting the hamstrings) so that you can choose the ones that
work for you, or that your gym has the equipment for.
Compound Movements

Back squats with elastic bands. The back squat is a mainstay of glute programs.
While it’s not the best exercise for targeting the glutes per se, it does build the lower
back and upper glutes. I include it in most glute programs for developing clear muscle
separation between the butt and lower back.

This is your standard back squat, but with about 30-50% of the total weight replaced
with elastic band resistance in the top half of the movement. Remember that resistance
bands add more resistance as the weight moves up. Each band has two number listed,
representing the amount of resistance applied at the bottom and top of the movement.
It’s the higher number you want to look at.

As an example: suppose you normally back squat 150 pounds (that’s the amount you
squat for your usual working sets, not your 1RM). You would want a band that applies
50-75 pounds of resistance at maximum, which means you’d want the purple band from
my recommended brand. If you squat at 250 pounds (again, for working sets), you’d
want a band that applies 90-125 pounds, meaning you’d pick the green band.

And remember: to target the glutes, you need to go as deep as possible. Don’t add
more weight then compensate by not going deep; that’s totally counterproductive when
your goal is to build a big, strong butt.

Video 1: Deep back squats

Video 2: Back squats with resistance bands

Bulgarian split squats from a deficit. The Bulgarian split squat is the best iso-lateral
squatting exercise, period. It works to sculpt and defines the sides of your butt in a way
that bilateral squats never could.

To get a full range of motion, you should do it from a deficit- meaning your front foot as
well as your back is elevated, allowing your knee to drop below the level of both feet.
This provides better muscle activation, and of course, lets you go deeper to target the
glutes more effectively.

Video: Bulgarian split squats from a deficit

Video: How to fix the most common mistake with the split squat

Cable pull-through. This exercise isn’t well-known, but it’s one of my favorite glute ex-
ercises- particularly for guys, since it trains the same hip-thrusting movement pattern
used for…fun times. Ahem.
Make sure to stand far enough away from the cable machine that there’s tension on the
cable throughout the full range of motion, even when you’re bent all the way over and
your hands are going slightly behind your butt. Contract the glutes with each rep and
keep a loose grip- don’t turn this into a arm exercise. Your arms should move forward
because your hips push them forward, not because you contract your arms.
Video 1: How to do pull-throughs

Video 2: Cable pull-throughs

Jump lunges. I used to recommend jump squats, but I switched to jump lunges be-
cause they’re iso-lateral, and it’s also a little easier to go deep on them compared to
jump squats. This is a great exercise for athletes who want to train for power- for aes-
thetic purposes, its main use is in post-activation potentiation supersets.

Don’t try to add dumbbells to these- you don’t want to smack yourself with them.

Video 1: Jump lunges, outdoors

Video 2: Jump lunges, indoors

Isolation Movements

Unilateral hip thrust from deficit. I like this better than the barbell hip thrust because
a) the deficit allows a better range of motion, and b) it’s unilateral. The downside is that
you can’t easily put a barbell on your hips, only a single barbell plate. Once you get re-
ally strong, that might limit this exercise to higher-rep work. Once you can do more than
twenty or so and can’t raise the weight, it’s about time to switch to kick-backs.

Video 1: Unilateral hip thrust from deficit (note: the deficit should be bigger)

Video 2: Unilateral hip thrust from a deficit with weight (better deficit)

Cable unilateral hip abduction. This is the best exercise for specifically targeting the
gluteus medius. As a reminder, the gluteus medius is involved in hip abduction, but only
when the knees are straight- the more common seated hip abduction will build your out-
er thighs, but won’t do much for your butt. If you want to develop wider hips, this is the
main exercise you would use to do that.

Video 1: Cable hip abduction

Video 2: Cable hip abduction

Glute cable kick-backs. This iso-lateral booty-building exercise is your best option for
building the main part of the gluteus maximus once you reach a point where you can’t
keep increasing the weight with the unilateral hip thrust.

Video 1: You’re doing it wrong- Cable kickback booty workout

Video 2: How to do cable kickbacks

Glute-ham raise. This movement works both the hamstrings and the gluteus maximus
at various parts of the movement; the assistance from the hamstrings make this useful
for post-exhausting the glutes after they’ve been fatigued by a compound movement. It
can be done either on a glute-ham station, the seat of a cable machine, or on the floor
with a partner holding your ankles. Keep your back as straight as possible; while it
looks similar to a back extension, the movement here should come from flexing/extend-
ing the knees, not the back.

I prefer doing them on a machine because the contractions are more dynamic, whereas
doing them on the floor, the movement can easily become eccentric-only as you push
yourself up with your hands. If you do perform them on the floor, be careful to push off
with your arms only as much as you need, and no more.

Video 1: Glute-ham raise on machines

Video 2: Glute-ham raise on the floor

Unilateral lying leg curl. The leg curl is the main movement used for isolation the
hamstrings. Whereas the glute-ham raise will be used to post-exhaust the glutes, the
leg curl is going to be used to pre-fatigue the hamstrings before your main compound
lifts. The lying leg curl is preferred over the seated leg curl because it produces superi-
or levels of muscle activation and allows a slightly greater range of motion.

Video 1: Unilateral lying leg curl

Video 2: Bilateral lying leg curl with emphasized eccentric

Part 6: Glute Workouts
Now for the grand finale: the actual workouts. The following workouts incorporate
everything I’ve presented to you so far- all of the exercises, advanced set and rep
schemes, and principles of workout design. The whole shebang.

Like any body part-specific workouts, they’re very short- around fifteen to twenty min-
utes per workout. That means you can use them in one of two ways- as stand-alone
workouts, or as parts of a longer workout. If you want to use them on their own, you
can do them as written. If you wish to incorporate them into a larger workout, each
workout has instructions on where to slot in other exercises to maintain optimal exercise
ordering.

Before we get to the workouts, a couple last notes:

Rest periods. In most cases, you should take about two or three minutes’ rest between
sets of isolation exercises and three to five minutes between sets of compound exercis-
es. Exceptions, such as antagonist-agonist supersets and post-activation potentiation
supersets, are noted when they come up. You can also take shorter rests if you’re al-
ternating between two muscle groups- pushups and squats, for instance- or if you’re do-
ing a unilateral exercise and alternating each leg.

Contrary to popular belief, the research suggests does not support the common pre-
scription of shorter rest intervals for muscular hypertrophy. Rest periods don’t need to
be timed; you can wait until you subjectively feel recovered, provided this doesn’t cause
your workout to drag on forever.

Number of sets per workout. These workouts include prescriptions for how many sets
of each exercise you should do, but you may need to adjust those numbers up or down
to match them to your target weekly training volume. The default numbers are written
with intermediate trainees, experiencing average stress levels, in mind, so they average
about six sets of glute work per workout.

As an example, suppose you’re a novice trainee with average stress levels. You’re aim-
ing for 14 sets a week and you train glutes every four days. You want eight sets per
workout, so you’ll probably want to add an extra set of each exercise per workout.
That’s right- because training frequency increases slightly faster than weekly training
volume, your number of sets per body part per workout often goes down as you get
more advanced.

There are six workouts here, which is more than anyone needs. Pick one or two of
them to use as standalone workouts, or two to four of them to incorporate into your full-
body workouts.
Workout 1: Back Squat

A1) Unilateral lying leg curl, 3 cluster sets per leg at 85/70% 1RM (DUP)
A2) Bilateral leg extension, 3 sets at 65% 1RM

B1) Back squat with resistance bands, 3 sets at 85/70% 1RM (DUP)
B2) Pushups, 3 sets to mild fatigue

C1) Glute kickbacks, 3 sets per leg at 70% 1RM

Notes

For the leg curl, alternate between each leg- performing three reps on each leg (starting
with the weaker leg) before resting ten seconds, then doing the other leg. The leg curl
should be taken to within one rep of failure, as the purpose is to pre-exhaust the ham-
strings.

The opposite is true for the leg extension- you want to warm up the quads without fa-
tiguing them, so stop your leg extensions several reps short of failure. To benefit from
the antagonist-agonist pairing, you should move quickly from the leg curl to the leg ex-
tension, taking most of your rest after the leg extension.

The pushups are just there to fill your time while your legs are recovering; you can leave
them out if your upper body is already fatigued from doing something else.

Intermediate to advanced trainees should incorporate DUP as noted, alternating be-

tween the two intensities with each workout. Novice trainees should only use the first
listed intensity- 85% in this case- on every workout.

Apply a reactive deload to the back squat if needed, as described in part 3 of this guide.

With the glute kickbacks, you can take just a minute or so of rest between sets since
you’re alternating legs.

As a standalone workout, this should take about 20-30 minutes. If you want to add oth-
er movements to make it a full-body workout, add them between circuits B and C.
Adding anything between A and B will remove the benefit of pre-fatiguing the ham-
strings. 

Workout 2: Split Squat

A1) Bulgarian split squat, 4 sets per leg at 80% of 1RM

A2) Arnold press, 4 sets at 75% of 1RM

B1) Cable unilateral hip abduction, 2 sets per leg at 65% of 1RM
B2) Glute-ham raise, 2 sets at 70% of 1RM

Notes: As with the last workout, the Arnold press is there to make this workout more
time-efficient, doesn’t need to be taken close to failure, and can be left out if you have
other plans for your shoulders.

As a standalone workout, this will only take about twenty minutes, so it’s a good candi-
date for incorporating into other workouts. If you add more stuff, put at least some of it
in between A and B to allow for more glute recovery time.

Workout 3: Pull-Through

A) Unilateral lying leg curl, 2 cluster sets at 80% 1RM

B) Cable pull-through, 4 sets at 85/70% 1RM (DUP)

C) Unilateral hip thrust from deficit, 2 sets per leg at 75% 1RM

Notes: As with the first workout, the leg curl should be taken very close to failure, and
novices should just train the pull-through at 85% intensity and ignore the daily undulat-
ing periodization.

This workout is designed to be quick and simple, and can be completed in fifteen min-
utes. If you want to add more exercises, you could add another circuit or two between
B and C. But you might also add another exercise to A, B and C, alternating two exer-
cises for unrelated body parts in much the same way that the previous workout alternat-
ed spit squats and Arnold presses.
Workout 4: The One-Superset Glute Workout

A1) Paused back squat with resistance bands, 5 sets at 85% intensity
A2) Jump lunges, 5 sets to fatigue

Notes: On the back squat, pause for one second at the bottom of each rep, performing
an isometric hold to further fatigue the glutes. Proceed immediately from the squat to
the jump lunges with no rest. On the jump lunges, keep your stride fairly long and go
deep.

This workout is short, but very intense. You’ll need longer than normal rests between
circuits; rest about 4-5 minutes after each set of jump lunges. The whole thing should
take 20 minutes. If you incorporate this into a longer workout, put this at the beginning,
just after your warmup. But don’t add too much more exercise, even exercise that tar-
gets other body parts- seriously, this short workout will tire you out.

Workout 5: Cable Machine Only

A1) Glute-ham raise, 3 sets at 70% 1RM

A2) Cable pull-through, 3 sets at 80% 1RM

B1) Cable unilateral hip abduction, 3 sets at 70% 1RM

B2) Cable glute kickback, 3 sets at 65% 1RM

Notes: The glute-ham raise should be paused 2-3 reps short of failure, while the pull-
through, abduction and kickback should be taken to within one rep of failure. The glute-
ham raise can be done on the seat of a cable machine.

Workout 6: Bodyweight Only (split squat, jump lunges, hip thrust, gh

raise)

A1) Bulgarian split squat, 4 sets per leg unweighted to fatigue

A2) Jump lunges, 4 sets to fatigue

B1) Glute-ham raise, 3 sets per side unweighted to fatigue

B2) Unilateral hip thrust, 3 sets per side unweighted to fatigue

Note: This workout is meant to be done at home or while traveling. If you don’t have
the equipment/partner to do the glute-ham raise, leave it out and raise the other three
exercises to five sets each.
 Final Thoughts

There’s a tremendous amount of information packed into this guide, but I want to close
it out by taking a step back from the finer details to look at the big picture.

First things first: if you take just one thing away from this guide, it should be the need to
actually train your glutes, which many supposed glute programs don’t do very well.
Many squat-focused glute programs actually do more to train your thighs than your
glutes, and allow quadriceps fatigue in particular to become a limiting factor for glute
training. The result is that the glutes grow a little bit, but actually look smaller by com-
parison to the muscles around them.

Second, I hope this guide has underscored the need to clearly define your goals. Think
beyond “growing your glutes” and ask yourself: Do I want my butt to be leaner, or do I
want a little extra padding? Do I want it to be wider, thicker from front to back or both?
Do I want the extra growth to be apparent when viewed from the front? And how much
do I care about functional strength vs hypertrophy? The answers to these questions will
determine which exercises you use and how you order them, among other things.

Last but not least, the sections on training volume and frequency will be an eye-opener
to many people. While most of us have a general sense that total training volume prob-
ably needs to go up as you get stronger, very few people understand that training fre-
quency also goes up with training age, and in fact goes up faster than total training vol-
ume. More advanced trainees should be doing shorter glute workouts, but way more
often than novices.