Guys, You Need Glutes Too

Fellas, regularly training your glutes is the best thing that you’re not doing for your physique, and that needs to change, today.

 

Hear me out…

 

Unless you too happen to be blessed with the thundering quads, hanging hamstrings, and juicy glutes born from a combination of favourable genetics and playing hockey for 12 years, don’t be surprised if your ass hangs flat, and there’s some serious sag going on in the back of your pants.

 

Across the globe, men and women alike, this epidemic of pancake ass serves nobody, and must be eradicated at all costs.

 

A bold and dramatic statement? Absolutely. But, well warranted in my humble, yet accurate opinion.

Based on the insane amount of generally-ridiculous exercises that #fitchicks come up with to “isolate their glutes,” and achieve a wicked booty pump, it’s clear as mud that female lifters need no further convincing of the value in training their glutes. Honestly, I’m pretty sure most women start lifting because all they really want are a firmer, perkier, voluptuous set of glutes.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that (God bless their souls, Lululemon leggings, and short shorts).

Men, on the other hand…y’all need a little more convincing (and this is coming from a fellow Man).

What follows is my case for the value of injecting some regular ass play into your training program.

Take a moment to think about this for a hot minute:

I mean, have you seen those sad, pancake-assed males walking around with pants that are barely able to stay perched on their waist, even with a belt?

Speaking frankly, it’s embarrassing. When you can draw a straight, uninterrupted line from the base of their neck right down to your heels, that represents a serious problem, and cannot be allowed to exist for a minute longer.

To spin this another way, your glutes are the largest muscle group on your body. Not only is it a crying shame to leave them untouched, untrained, sad and underdeveloped, but you’re doing your physique (and sex life) a tremendous disservice. Not to mention the caloric demands and energy expenditure that comes as a byproduct of a brutal glute-focused leg session.

In short, train your glutes hard, you can eat more food, and you’ll be better in bed.

Find me a more appealing win-win scenario, and I’ll eat my words.

Here’s why you need glutes, and how to destroy your pancake butt

The benefits of having an eye-grabbing ass are legion, and a make up a list worthy of it’s own article.

Everything from the boost in self-confidence, to the rounding out of your physique, and the “functional prowess” (whatever that means) that comes with building a powerful ass.

Your glutes are the largest, foundational muscle of your body. If you have a powerful, well-developed set of glutes, not only will you find a strength carryover to other exercises in a powerful way, but there are some fun “side-effects” as well.

Such as:

• • You’ll develop stronger, more powerful, leaner, and ultimately bigger legs, from top to bottom.
  • Your posture will improve. And little looks better than fantastic posture.
  • Shredded abs.
  • Greatly reduced injury risk. Especially through your hips, abdominals, and lower back.
  • Your sex life, and prowess will improve. It’s all in the hips, brother.

 

And on top of all that…

Something about having an impressive set of glutes pulls a lot of eyes to you.

Weird, right?

5 Steps to building Glutes of the Gods

When you boil it down, building glutes worthy of the Greek Gods themselves is inherently simple. Butt (pun admittedly, shamefully intended), there are some tips, tricks, and steps you can to take to shave some time off your growth curve.

Enter 5 steps ways to eradicate your pancake ass, and end the abomination that is saggy ass cheeks.

1. Don’t skip the foreplay or forget your lube

As much as I hate doing so myself, a great training session begins with a great warm up. For the sake of your lower back, hips, hamstrings, and any other joints or muscles that may hate you on any given day, make sure you warm up well.

By that, I mean your warm up needs to serve a specific purpose. Establishing blood flow and lubricating your joints with synovial fluid before you dive into your session not only plays a role in injury prevention, but it will also have an impact on how effective training effect of your session actually is.

The videos below are both great exercises to include in your pre-glute day warm up.

 

2. Be specific in your approach

The law of specificity will typically reign supreme when it comes to building muscle. As much of a shock as this may be (*rolls eyes*), your glutes are no different than any other muscle. If it be glorious glutes you – like many other men – lack, you need to give them their own training day.

As an example, your 5 day training split could look like this:

Monday: Legs
Tuesday: Back + Arms
Wednesday: Chest + Shoulders
Thursday: OFF
Friday: Glutes
Saturday: Arms + Shoulders
Sunday: OFF

You’re not neglecting any one muscle group, you’re not hitting the gym every single day, and you’re giving your ass the specificity and extra volume it needs to grow into something large, and beautiful.

3. A muscle is a muscle is a muscle

Meaning, that while some variation exists in how you should approach your training from muscle to muscle, many of the principles you apply to how you train, and the tactics at your disposal will translate from muscle to muscle to muscle.

For optimal, explosive glute hypertrophy, the 3 “triggers” of hypertrophy below are imperative to your results.

Trigger #1: Intramuscular tension

Creating intramuscular tension means finding the sweet spot in being able to move some serious weight, while controlling the tempo (typically a slow one) while executing each rep force, and acceleration.

This is the most truthful definition of intramuscular tension, and achieving it requires more than just thinking about your mind-muscle connection, and the movement you’re executing.

The first two exercises in the sample session at the bottom of this article will have you feeling a perfect example of what intramuscular tension truly is.

Trigger #2: Hyperaemia & Occlusion

Hyperaemia is simple. All you need to do to increase blood flow to whichever muscles you’re targeting, is to execute a few higher-rep sets with appreciable load. This is best known as classic bodybuilding-style training.

Occlusion comes from placing your focus on smooth, constant tension reps where you key in on flexing in the contracted position and not sinking into a full stretch on any rep. Rep execution in this manner will elicit a powerful occlusion effect.

Exercises B2 and D1 in the session below are prime examples of hyperaemia and occlusion, respectively.

Trigger #3: Muscle damage (or seeing God)

The premise of muscle damage is thus; the more frequently, and to greater degree that you’re able to break down muscle tissue, the greater the resulting hypertrophy will be. Again – there needs to be a calorie surplus for growth to occur as well.

Let’s put that into plain English. Don’t train like a little bitch, push yourself, create muscle trauma and you will grow.

Muscle damage goes beyond sets, reps, tempos and rest times. To achieve true, unadulterated muscle damage requires cajones, creativity, and intensity…always.

I’m talking intensification techniques such as drop sets, isometric holds, partial reps, and so on.

Do it all (just not all at once).

4. Include both unilateral and bilateral work in your session

There’s a lot of value in mixing a blend of unilateral and bilateral work into your training sessions. Especially when it comes to your glutes, and even more so if you’re only targeting them once per week.

That means not just squats, deadlifts, hip thrusts and their many variations. You should also be Including single, stiff-legged deadlifts, single-leg hip thrusts, lunges (reverse, frontal, lateral), and bulgarian split squats to name a few.

While the list goes on the exercises above should do plenty to get you going, and growing.

5. Shut up and squat

The #fitchicks and their debatably amazing asses (man, Instagram filters these days, can they really be trusted?) may have a zest for creative, pointless ways of targeting their glutes, but most of them have one thing figured out.

They squat nearly every damn day for a reason.

Squats will build your glutes.

You can’t really get around that fact, so, shut up and squat.

Butt (heh), in case you really don’t want to…

A training session worthy of the Glute Gods

As with any article where I talk about the nuances of training different body parts, I’d be remiss if I didn’t send you off with a session to put into practice. Besides, sometimes I just like knowing that you’re going to hate me in 2-3 days.

Away we go.

A1. Lying Leg Curls 6×6-8

Use a 40X1 tempo here. Keep your chest up off the pad, hips pressed down hard, glutes tight, and focus on flooding your hamstrings with blood. We want strong, crisp contractions here. After each set, do 4 additional alternating single leg reps per leg. Rest 60-90s between sets.

B1. 1 & 1/4 Rep Barbell Back Squats 5×6

Use a 3110 tempo here. Set your feet just outside shoulder width, with your toes turned out 10-15 degrees. Keep your torso upright, and aim to drop your ass toward your heels. Pyramid up in weight over your first 3 sets, then make sure those last 2 sets are a challenging 8 reps. For the quarter reps, squat all the way down, come up about 1/3 of the way, sink back down, and the stand all the way up. That’s one complete rep. Rest for 30s before moving to B2.

B2. Cable Pull Throughs 5×15-20

Flex your glutes hard for 2 seconds in the peak contraction of each rep. Let the weight pull you down until your chest is parallel with the floor. Rest for 90s before moving back to B1.

C1. Barbell Hip Thrusts 3×15-20

Set up with a shoulder width stance, and feet kept neutral. Flex in the contracted position for 1s on each rep. Rest no more than 10s before starting C2.

C2. Barbell Stiff-Legged Deadlifts 3×10-12

Set your feet outside shoulder width, with your toes turned out 15 degrees or so. Maintain a neutral spine as you focus on moving your hips back backward and forward, as opposed to up and down. Flex your glutes, hammies, and adductors hard the entire time. Rest no more than 10s before starting C3.

C3. Reverse Drop Lunges 3×10 EL

Holding DBs in each hand, perform these off of an aerobic stepper for a little more range of motion (and pain). Focus on driving through your glutes and hamstrings. Rest for 90-120s before starting back at C1.

D1. Leg Press 3×15-25

Place your feet high and wide on the platform with your toes angled out. No pausing whatsoever, and bang out as many reps as possible. The goal is to hit muscular failure between 15 and 25 reps. Adjust your weight as needed to stay within that rep bracket. Rest as needed between sets.

E1. Banded Good Mornings 2×20

Wrap a band around your upper back, and stand on the other end. Use a slow tempo here, and focus on achieving a deep stretch in your hamstrings, without firing up your lower back. Rest as needed between sets.

==========

And that’s all she wrote.

Men, do yourself a favour and run through this session once per week for the next 8-10 weeks. Seriously, your glutes are in need.

Women, if you’re reading this, you know what to do.

(Hint: the above session will work wonders for tightening up your glutes).

 

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