Have you ever tried to grow your glute muscles? Have you trained every day? What was the result? Has your butt gone bigger? Have your legs grown? Have you actually lost your shape?

It is very important to have a proper rest in between your trainings for your muscles to recover. But how should you know how long it takes? According to research conducted by Stijn van Willigen, “train too frequently, and the muscle will actually decrease in functional size over time, because you constantly stimulate before the muscle has completed recovery and adaptation.”

What is the optimum frequency to train your muscles? Can be individual. You can have a look at Stijn´s article and workout frequency calculator here, it is explained very well there.

For me, when I started to work out frequently, I didn´t know a lot about muscle anatomy or all that science behind. Since I started gym, I´ve been working out using weights and I have created some muscle mass, but never focused specially on the booty. Lately I´ve been focusing mostly on weightloss/fatloss, which might be very tricky in order not to lose muscle, when not done correctly. Of course I have lost some size of the booty (as in my case it was the fat layer), but I wanted to avoid "losing my butt", while cutting weight and fat.

In order to find out more about this science, I started to search for more information about how the muscle works, focusing mainly on the glutes to let them grow and have the bum still "stand out". :-)

♥ Make sure to scroll to the bottom of the article for my training program. ♥

Gluteal muscles anatomy shortly

The gluteal muscles are a group of three muscles which make up the buttocks: the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus. The three muscles originate from the ilium and sacrum and insert on the femur. The functions of the muscles include extension, abduction, external rotation and internal rotation of the hip joint.

There is a 3 groups split of glute exercises:

- stretchers

- activators

- pumpers

I have "borrowed" this sum-up of exercises from Stijn van Willigen to show you:

All these three types of exercises have a different range of motion (ROM) and involve different gluteal muscles, and each need a different time to recover. This means we can switch in between them during our 6 days a week workout program to the "dopest" booty growth.

You can find the whole Stijn´s article here:

PART 1

PART 2

Stretchers

Stretchers are high intensity exercises that need 3 to 4 days recovery. Examples of stretchers are weighted squats, deadlifts and lunges.

Activators

Activators are exercises of moderate intensity and they need 2 to 3 days recovery. Examples of activators: weighted hip thrusts, glute bridges, cable pull throughs and cable kickbacks.

Pumpers

Pumpers are low intensity exercises and your body usually needs just 1 to 2 days rest between it´s training. Examples are bodyweight squats, exercises with resistance band such as glute bridges, banded crab walks, banded hip extension etc. This type of exercises has smaller range of motion and so take shorter time to recover. Can be used at the beginning of you glute or leg workout to activate the glutes.

Training program

With this knowledge, I have put together a booty training in order to train the booty as many times as it´s effective, keeping recommended rests for each muscles. So you cold go for example:

Each of the types of exercise has it´s required rest, only pumpers I had written down for every day, but I take a "day off" when I feel so. Although I have planned to hit the gym everyday, I follow the idea of listening to my body and do not workout, if I feel very tired or if my body needs a rest. For me the exercise is passion and a hobby, so I love to do it every day, if I have time and energy. In this case, if I have other duties and I have to skip the workout, I simply skip it and don´t feel bad about it.

Progressive overload

What actually makes the muscle grow is the gradual increase of stress when training the muscles called progressive overload. It was developed by Thomas Delorme, M.D. while he rehabilitated soldiers after World War II.

The human body will not change unless it's forced to. That's why you can never grow complacent with your training. Once you fall into a comfort zone and the workouts are no longer challenging, you'll plateau.

Why ?

Conversely, if the demands on the target muscle groups are not at least maintained or are actually decreased, your muscles will atrophy, losing size and strength.

You can either increase the resistance, the reps, the volume, increase the frequency of training, just step out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself. The best things come when we push ourselves out of the comfort we are used to. Right? :)

Involve compensatory exercise

Stretch your hip flexors. Psoas, each of a pair of large muscles that run from the lumbar spine through the groin on either side and (with the iliacus) flex the hip. A second muscle, the psoas minor, has a similar action, but is often absent.

A functioning psoas muscle creates a neutral pelvic alignment, stabilizes the hips, supports the lower spine and abdomen, supports the organs in the pelvic and abdominal cavity and gives you greater mobility and core strength.

When your hip flexors tighten it causes a lot of problems in ordinarily healthy and active people. Check out these 10 Key Moves you need to loosen your hip flexors by kinesiologist and injury specialist Rick Kaselj, MS.

Try using these simple techniques demonstrated by Rick either on their own, or incorporated into your new daily workout routine. Loosen your hips and have a greater strength and more power.

Stop Joint Pain & Inflammation with food

As per strength training, full-fledged diet is the key. Prevent or stop the joint pain by eating pain and inflammation fighting superfoods. Boost your vitality, energy levels and mental clarity, so that you can GO FOR MORE ♥♥♥

Poor dietary choices over stimulate the immune system and cause chronic inflammatory responses that deteriorate the body’s overall health, limiting mobility and contributing to painful joints.

However, you can simply start incorporating anti-inflammatory foods into your diet. Fortunately the list of these is long and yummy :P These are foods rich in immune boosting vitamins, antioxidants, flavonoids, phytonutrients, minerals, proteins, healthy fats or complex carbs.

You can order a resource guide called 101 Superfoods that Stop Your Joint Pain & Inflammation, with 101 foods that will help you move and feel better in just 14-days.

I hope you´ll try some of my tips and exercises for a nicer and bigger booty and if you liked these, let me know via comment here or in YouTube, if to make more similar articles - science based. Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel as well.

Lots of love