Today we are going to talk about our glutes. The gluteus maximum is the largest muscle in the human body. Aside from the aesthetic reasons for building up our glutes, there are incredibly functional reasons we need to focus on this muscle group.
Butt strength is incredibly important and comes with all sorts of ancillary benefits. Your glutes stabilize your pelvis and this means it keeps the hip joints in line, which will reduce back pain and take pressure off the knees. Further, strong glutes aid in everything from running speed, agility, jumping and having strong glutes will aid in big compound lifts like deadlifts and squats.
Other benefits of strong glutes are strengthening hip extension and stability, proper knee tracking and less susceptibility to hamstring injury. With all of the benefits to building out your booty, not to mention the aesthetics of having a nice ass, it is a no brainer that we need to pay very close attention to working this muscle out and making it strong. The question is how.
A lot of guys say they get their glute work through squats and deadlifts and this is true, but it is not complete. Deadlifts will never fully activate the glutes. This isn’t to say they aren’t important, but as part of a larger routine. Like the deadlift, the squat trains the glute but isn’t the total package. There are a few isolation moves ought to be taken together with deadlifts and squats in order to build big, healthy, strong glutes up. The first one of these is one of my personal favorites, the barbell hip thruster.
Barbell hip thrusters will improve both the strength and the size of the glutes, but also the aesthetics (rounder, higher, firmer ass) and in doing so allows you to reap all the benefits listed above.
Guys too often avoid hip thrusters and I think that is a terrible idea. The reason most guys avoid them is that they feel awkward doing them in the gym and aren’t 100% sure how to do them correctly. Gym embarrassment is just something we need to get over and in a world where you can find form videos galore in seconds and watch them on your phone; there is no excuse not to be able to figure out form. The barbell hip thruster was a staple of golden age body builders and we need to bring it back.
Another great move, so long as your gym has the equipment, is the butt blaster machine. Take a second to chortle at the butt blaster and get it out of your system. The butt blaster is the greatest way to isolate the glute. If you work out at a home gym or your gym doesn’t have a butt blaster machine, you can replace the movement by doing weighted glute kickbacks. The reason men avoid the weighted glute kickbacks or butt blasters is very much the same as why they avoid hip thrusters, they think it is a “girlie” move. I never could understand this mentality. We are talking about isolating and working out the single largest muscle in the body so get over your fears of how silly you will look working it out and focus on the work we have to do.
Today’s challenge will be a mASSive volume workout that targets the glutes. This is a big work out, but it is a big muscle chain.
WB Fitness Glute Workout
1) Back Squat 3×20 @9.5 RPE
2) Deadlift 3×20 @9.5 RPE
3) Glute Ham Raise 3×20
Superset 1 3×20
Dumbbell lunge
Barbell Hip Thursters
4) Barbell Bulgarian Split Squat 3×20 @9.5 RPE
5) Romanian Deadlifts 3×20 @9.5 RPE
Superset 2 3×20
Single Leg Dumbbell Straight Leg Deadlift
Butt Blaster Machine (or Glute Kickbacks if you have no access to Butt Blaster machine
When you are finished, remember to take some time and use a foam roller for your piriformis. A locked up piriformis will put you out of the game but a good foam roll (or a professional piriformis massage) will help unlock the muscle and avoid the ever too common issues arising from sciatica in weight lifting. So give it a try and comment below on your experience. As always, let me know if you have any questions about proper form or anything else.
Here is a link showing proper piriformis foam roller form.
https://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/piriformis-smr