Glute Development Priorities
This post is part of The Ultimate Bikini Prep Guide – check out the full guide for more!
In most women’s categories, there’s a high emphasis placed on glutes. Even in Figure and Women’s Physique – where the emphasis is more on total body and not leg dominance – having some serious glute development is still seen as an asset, as long as you’re able to pose them correctly for your division.
So, what does it take to build these suckers and how do we go about it?
Let’s dive in.
“More Glutes” Isn’t a Training Plan
“With a Rebel Yell, she cried more! More! More!”
Billy Idol would be proud. But that’s not how we start down the road towards monster glutes. The biggest mistake is immediately treating glutes differently because they’re a higher priority than other body parts.
Fundamentally, they’re still a muscle that needs to grow and they respond the same as everything else. We need a really good stimulus, really high intensity, and enough recovery that they can actually grow in between sessions and over time.
Many newer competitors think “well, I’m doing wellness so I need to train glutes 4 times a week” kinda like guys who think they need to train chest 3 times a week.
The thing is, those guys who train chest that much never look like they do – because they’re throwing volume at a problem where volume isn’t the answer.
The answer is execution – not lifting for ego but focusing on the quality of each rep that you perform. Increase your skill at performing each exercise, and challenge yourself to get extra reps at moderate weight, while not losing that connection.
Over time, weight increases (slowly) and you can find yourself quite strong at the exercises you stick with.
IF you’re growing, responding, and feeling good – perfect. Stay right there. More isn’t the answer. More time is the answer. Patience.
The Concepts That Actually Drive Glute Development
With the basic concept penciled in, executed well and feeling good, let’s dig a little deeper.
Mind-muscle connection and execution quality
Similar to what we just discussed but in a bit more detail.
The stimulus – how much you feel and how deeply connected you are to the muscle doing the work and how it feels – is everything.
More weight with less stimulus means LESS growth, not more. You’ve overkicked your coverage, to use a football term. You’ve chosen a weight that your body can move, but not effectively. Go back down and stay there for a bit, and increase slower over a longer period of time.
This is completely counter to our instincts which is why it’s hard, and it’s why most people don’t grow. Some people have a deeper, automatic intuitive understanding of proprioception and those people grow and look like they are just throwing weight around, but they have that deep connection that we’re trying to form – maybe without even knowing it. Like how some people can pick up a guitar and learn to play it quickly without struggling and others still can’t play a barre chord after 2 years.
Range of motion and where tension is applied
It helps to understand the mechanics of each move – if you’re following a program built for you, hopefully it’s a good one and incorporates a variety of movements that all have slightly different purposes – hitting or emphasizing different parts of the glute or amplifying certain parts of the range of motion.
Think about a hip thrust – the hip is most loaded here at the top, with hips fully extended where you hold that squeeze.
Compare that to a reverse hyper table extension or a cable kickback. The loading at the top is fairly weak but there’s much more initially or in the middle of the rep.
Knowing that, what can we say about a kickback? We want to really emphasize the start of the movement and making sure the glute is working hard THERE, where it’s most challenged.
But yet how do we most commonly see these performed? Explosive at the start – too heavy, and using momentum and some extra oomph to start a rep with too much weight – completely losing the plot of the exercise.
Go lighter, go slower.
The tie-in and balance piece
People talk about ‘tie-in’ like it’s something you can train, but you can’t. It is, by definition, the space or separation between muscles. You can’t train what isn’t there.
What it really means is how the glute flows in to the hamstring. Which really means 3 things:
- Having some development in the lower glute
- Having good hamstring development
- Being lean enough to see the separation
If you’re loading the glute well in that stretched position, that’s key. Kickbacks and RDL’s are great for this.
Exercise Selection — How to Think About It
We have a few categories or buckets we can place movements into and ideally we’re going to reach into each bucket at least once for a good glute session.
Hip extension patterns
Extension just means ‘straightening’ – think about going from a seated position to a standing position – that’s hip (and knee) extension. Squats, RDL’s, hip thrusts – these are all extension movements.
Leg press does as well, and you can bias this to hit more glute by moving your foot higher on the plate (greater ratio of hip extension to knee extension that way – lower on the plate = more quad bias).
Ultimately we need to feel tension in the muscle and execute well. This matters more than anything. An exercise is only “the best exercise” if it feels the most connected to you.
Hip abduction and external rotation
These movements are seen as more glute medius or ‘accessory’ movements but they are not. They still hit the glute maximum well, and we want medius development anyway so these are staples.
These movements often feel performative – ‘going through the motions’ because people struggle connect with them. As always, go light, slow, and higher rep to focus on where the burn is really felt.
Machine or cable abduction are both great, also kickbacks have an element of this as well, especially if you rotate/angle yourself a bit so the movement has a bit more ‘angle’ to it.
Isolation and finishing movements
This can include kickbacks but also variations on previous themes. A cable pullthrough can be a great secondary movement here, I wouldn’t rely on it as a primary growth exercise to open a workout with but when the glutes are already pumped and fatigued, moderate weight on a pullthrough can feel devastating in the best way.
Various glute machine options (scout your gym) can be good fits here. A single leg press is great to wind down a workout with.
Go lighter, higher rep, and just stay mentally tough to remain engaged and focused on the glute through the entire set.
Progression That Actually Produces Visual Change
Progressive overload is still a guiding principle but that doesn’t always mean adding weight.
If you add a rep, that’s progressive overload.
If you execute a movement better at the same weight and rep count, that’s still progression.
If you slow down the tempo and keep all other variables the same, that’s still progression.
If you fix shortened range of motion but keep everything else the same, that’s progression.
The process requires patience, no matter how great your work ethics or how genetically gifted you are.
Take photos, and compare month to month. Track your execution, monitor your visuals, and see if what you’re doing is having the desired effect.
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