“I’ve done like a million squats, WHY AREN’T MY GLUTES GROWING?!?”
I actually Googled that one time…
The top result mentioned, “you just might not have the genes.”
And I thought well.. that must be it…
“I’m incapable of having a butt, it’s just my genes”
BULL. SHIT.
That article still makes me mad.. because years later tons of research I learned what I was doing wrong and..
BOOM!
I have a booty now.
So if I can grow my glutes, *trust me*, YOU CAN TOO!
Here’s my own proof:
(The left is the other side of my body I just flipped the pic for comparison purposes. Lots of other pics and vids on my Instagram (linked below) if you’re still skeptical lol)
PS.. If you’re looking for how to grow your glutes and hips – check out my post dedicated to growing your hips here.
11 Reasons Why Your Glutes Aren’t Growing
1. You squat too much.
Yea, you heard me.
You’re squatting too much.
The internet is full of lies.
One of those lies is that allyou need to do to grow your glutes is squat.
Don’t get me wrong..
I’m not telling you to stop squatting.
Squatting is great and will definitely help you grow your glutes, but..
But if you are mainly doing squats and wondering why your glutes aren’t growing, it’s probably because you need to do more than just squat.
Squats are a compound move, meaning they work multiple muscle groups at the same time – but they aren’t the only compound movement you should be doing to grow your glutes!
Other great glute growth exercises that are compound are deadlifts and hip thrusts.
You should also be doing isolation moves – aka moves that work just your glutes.
Some great isolation glute exercises include kickbacks, hip abductors, and “clams”.
2. You aren’t using enough weight.
If you want a bigger or more toned booty, you have to grow your glute muscles.
You butt is just a big ol’ muscle (well, group of muscles, but that’s beside the point).
To grow any muscle, you have to lift heavy.
I mean heavy, heavy.
It should be as heavy as you are capable of doing, without hurting yourself of course.
Your Glutes Aren’t Growing But You Can’t Go to The Gym:
Not everyone can make it into the gym, totally understandable.
So a question I commonly get is can you grow glutes without weights?
The answer is yes.
Even if you don’t have weights, the important thing you need to remember for muscle growth is – progressive overload.
This simply means continually challenging your muscles over time – and continuing to challenge them further.
If your glutes aren’t growing the biggest factor to look at is if you’re doing progressive overload (and eating enough – I’ll explain more below).
Adding weight is the easiest way to do this, but if you have limited weights at home there are other ways as well.
You can increase resistance (through bands), add more reps, or more sets, etc.
One of my favorite at-home glute growth tools is resistance bands.
Above I mentioned that the 2 main factors to look at if your glutes aren’t growing are progressive overload and if you’re eating enough.
If you read my Macros for Weight Loss post, you know that to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you eat.
But here’s something a lot of people don’t want to hear: to grow your glutes, I mean really grow them, you need to eat in surplus.
That scares some people because they’re afraid of gaining weight..
But if you’re following your workout plan and putting in your maximum effort, those extra calories will convert into glute gains instead of fat.
If you’ve ever heard someone say they’re “bulking”, this is what they’re talking about.
They’re eating in a calorie surplus (surplus=eating more than you burn) in order to grow their muscles.
If your glutes aren’t growing, there’s a good possibility you’re not eating enough.
Okay, but what should you eat to grow glutes?
I always recommend macro counting for your diet – whether you’re trying to grow your glutes or lose weight.
It works for both because in macro counting, you enter your information into a macro calculator.
One of the questions it will ask is what your goal is – aka are you trying to lose weight or gain muscle?
It then outputs how many calories you should be eating and what those calories should be made of – aka how much fat, carbs and protein you should be eating.
4. You are doing the same exercises.
If your glutes aren’t growing after you’ve been trying for a while, it may be time to switch things up.
Your booty is made up of 3 main muscles: gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and the gluteus minimus.
Different exercises will have a different focus for these areas.
If you do the same exercises over and over, you’re body is going to get used to it.
You want to switch up your workouts often!
Do different moves to target each group and challenge your muscles.
If you find it difficult to come up with a plan that will challenge each of these muscle groups AND continually change up your workouts frequently enough, try out my 12 Week Booty Building Bootcamp!
5. You aren’t training frequently enough.
Talk to any ‘fit’ person out there and ask their secret and I guarantee that consistency will be in their top 5.
If you’re upset that your glutes aren’t growing but you’re only working out your legsand glutes once a week, that isn’t going to do it.
You need to train your glutes at least 2-3 times a week, every week, to see results.
It’s going to take time.
Don’t get discouraged after the first week or two. It might take a few months, but if you really want it, just think how worth it it will be!
6. You aren’t resting enough.
This one probably sounds like a contradiction now, but you also need to make sure you’re letting yourself rest.
That’s between sets and between glute days.
If you’re planning on training glutes 3 days a week, don’t do them back to back.
Quick-y lesson on how muscles grow: your muscles tear when you strain them (weight lifting, etc.) and then they magically repair themselves and when they do, they grow back bigger and stronger.
To be able to repair themselves, and therefore grow, they need time to rest!
If you’re training a muscle every single day, it’s not going to have the time it needs to rebuild itself fully.
7. You haven’t given it enough time!
Building muscle takes time and CONSISTENCY.
Everyone wants to know how to grow their glutes fast.
This isn’t something that is going to happen over night.
Anyone that tells you differently is trying to sell you lies.
It’s going to happen slowly and incrementally, but if you follow these tips, it will happen!
If it’s only been a week or two and you’re thinking your glutes aren’t growing fast enough, there’s a good chance you just need to keep at what you’re doing and give it time.
8. YOUR FORM IS WRONG
One big reason you may be working out like crazy but your glutes still aren’t growing may be because you’re not working out your butt… when you THINK you’re working out your butt.
Wait.. what?
Yup.
A common mistake is that you think an exercise is working just by the virtue of you doing it.
But if your form is wrong, you may be working the completely wrong muscles.
If you don’t feel an exercise primarily in your butt, it’s a good idea to pause, google the correct form and try again.
9. YOU AREN’T ACTIVTING YOUR GLUTES
Adding on to the point above…
If you’re sure your form is right but you still don’t feel an exercise working your glutes..
It can be helpful to stop and do some glute activation movements.
What are glute activation movements?
Well, a lot of us don’t actually use our glutes that much..
We sit.. a lot.
Our glutes need to be ‘woken’ up to put it simply.
Activation movements are nothing more than regular glute focused exercises that are done with little to no weight, high reps, and with a direct focus and intent on using the glutes to do the movement.
For example a great glute activtion exercise is bodyweight squats.
You’d do about 30 of them while really thinking and focusing on feeling it in your glutes and having the correct form.
After you do a few of these, when you go to do your normal workout plan, you should feel your glutes working way more than before.
10. You’re doing too many reps
Another common mistake is doing tons of reps.
Somewhere at sometime it was popular to hear that you should do “light weight, high reps” to tone your body.
Please excuse me while I roll my eyes…
Any way…
I’ve seen people complaining that their glutes aren’t growing and it ends up being because this idea has followed them..
If you’re doing a high amount of reps, that’s probably a good indicator that you aren’t adding enough weight or resistance.
Lower the reps, increase the weight/resistance.
11. YOU DON’T Have a Plan
All of these tips I mentioned are important, but…
If you think you’re doing everything above and you feel like your glutes aren’t growing still, there’s porbably something off and you could save yourself a lot of time and trouble by investing in a plan.
Truely, nothing is more important than putting it all together and staying consistent with a strategically made plan.
There are lots of plans out there, but I’m a bit biased towards my own.
I would love for you to check out my 12 Week Booty Bootcamp! ?
