When I saw this photo last year, I instantly fell in love with Megan Fox.
She became my dream-girl overnight. You can say all you want about her personality, blah, blah, blah. Personality is overrated. You can imagine my disappointment when I came across these pictures the other day!
Say It Ain’t So!
Megan Fox’s butt is just not that good! When I saw these I felt like the dejected 1920’s schoolboy who just found out that Shoeless Joe Jackson was involved in the 1919 Black Sox scandal. “Say it Ain’t So, Joe!”
How can one of the hottest girls in the world NOT have a great butt? She’s rich! She’s already thin. It would be so easy! Ugh! Give me two months to train Megan and I will have her butt looking unbelievable. This would translate into millions of dollars for her over the course of her career. And once her booty was “Gluteus Magnificus,” it’s quite easy to maintain. Building it is much harder than keeping it.
I am quickly becoming known as the “World’s Greatest Glute Sculptor” for good reason. Not a single individual on Earth has combed through the literature pertaining to the glutes, conducted EMG experiments on the glutes, and created glute exercises and protocols like I have.
I have two online clients I’d like to mention right now. I should also mention that I’m not even training these two people in person. If I was, they’d see even better results!
Kellie Davis
The first is figure competitor Kellie Davis. Kellie first began training 18 months ago and performed a combination of strength training (bodypart split, supersets, giant sets), plyometrics, and low-intensity cardio. Kellie started training with me just over 2 months ago where we dropped the cardio and plyos and focused on progressive overload via upper/lower splits 6 days/week. In the final month we dropped the volume and frequency (upper/lower splits 4 days/week) while maintaining intensity and adding in two 20-minute HIIT sessions per week. No extreme dieting measures and no low-intensity cardio has been used in our training. Kellie takes no sports supplements or performance enhancing drugs. Not even creatine!
Here is Kellie’s transformation in the past 18 months:
Pretty damn astounding! The picture on the left was taken 18 months ago and the two pictures on the right were taken very recently. Kellie had trained for 16 months on her own and had seen unbelievable results. She came to me two months ago and her butt has gotten even better in such a short period of time. Here are her results from two months ago. Each row was taken around two weeks apart.
Of course, she already had a nice butt and hamstrings prior to training with me, but now they’re even better. They’re definitely her strong point!
Ian Mills
The second online client is Olympic Skeleton hopeful Ian Mills. He’s been lifting heavy weights for quite some time now, performing squats, deadlifts, cleans, split squats, plyos, and sprints. So his glutes were already developed. However, I added barbell glute bridges, hip thrusts, and pendulum quadruped hip extensions into his routine. In the past two months, here are some of Ian’s comments to me (which he sent via email):
“I caught my wife staring at my butt today and when I looked at her she says, “Wow! where’d you get that butt”? So I say with a look of obviousness, “Bret, my trainer, he’s the Glute Guy!”
“There is a neat phenomenon that happens when I do pendulum quadruped hip extensions/weighted donkey kicks. Without getting too out of breath, I break out into a crazy sweat when doing this movement…..I love it. So powerful! And it correlates perfectly with how I push my skeleton sled”
“Since starting on your program, the intensity of isometric contractions and muscle density in my glutes and hamstrings has gone through the roof…and I can still touch my nose to my knees! This program gives me the confidence that my glutes will fire properly and my hamstrings will stay healthy when I do my all out speed workouts”
“I am totally starting to notice my increased glute firing/contraction force while sprinting. I can seriously feel my hips being thrust forward when I am running tall…its wicked. I wonder if the hip thrusts have anything to do with it :)”
If I had a dollar for every client who told me that they feel running more in their glutes after performing my exercises for a couple of months I’d march my ass right on down to Sizzler! I get emails and Facebook emails almost daily telling me how glute bridges and hip thrusts are helping people’s glute strength and glute appearance tremendously.
In fact, here’s a message from my Facebook friend Keda Ley:
“FYI Your hip thrusts have literally saved my ass. I thought it was damned to eternal atrophy, but it has literally bounced back. I’ve gone from 38″ to 40″ (I’m not a small girl), while my waist has remained the same, which only means one thing: booty meat! LOL”
Bret’s Rules for Rapid Glute Hypertrophy Results
1. Make sure the hip flexors aren’t tight. Tight hip flexors inhibits the gluteus maximus neurally and mechanically
2. Make sure the glutes are activating properly via proper hip extension rather than “false hip extension” or lumbar extension/anterior pelvic tilt
3. Prescribe stable exercises first, worry about unstable exercises down the road if you want
4 No Swiss balls! The glutes like stability
5. No pull-throughs (have you ever seen someone use any decent load with a pull-through? The hip thrust kicks the holy hell out of the pull through)
6. Squats, deadlifts, lunges, back extensions, and pendulum quadruped hip extensions are good. Barbell hip thrusts and barbell glute bridges are great!
7. Constant tension is paramount
8. Most important factor – get very strong in higher rep ranges at barbell glute bridges and hip thrusts. These are the two best glute hypertrophy exercises
9. Glute machines are okay if in a gym (although the pendulum underneath the reverse hyper beats any machine)
10. No kettlebell swings or single leg RDL’s. Again, we want stability and constant tension. Provide a stable base, get strong, and trap the blood in the glutes to release muscle building growth factors, hormones, and cytokines. Nothing against these lifts but for beginners seeking rapid glute results they’re not optimal.
My 13 year old niece’s glutes are stronger than plenty of men’s, and she only trains with me one day per week (for the past 8 months).
Advice for fellow fitness folks trying to deliver great glutes:
Learn from the strength coaches and physical therapists and use proper form and proper progressions (gradual).
Learn from bodybuilders and form an intense mind-muscle connection and get strong in medium to higher rep ranges (especially for the gluteus maximus which is a 60% slow twitch muscle). Finally, seek the pump which is possible with hip thrust and barbell glute bridges. The pump is great for hypertrophy!
Train like an athlete in terms of exercise selection and frequency (but use higher rep ranges) and train like a bodybuilder in terms of volume and methods (but use better glute exercises).
If I was in L.A. I’d be going after all the female celebrities and transforming their butts left and right. So there you have it! More glute tips from The Glute Guy.
Great title for post got my attention right away, overall great stuff bret.
Thanks Jaime!!!
Everytime I do glute bridges the following day I just feel the soreness on lower butt, the outer corners, and the center but never the upper part. What exercises can I do to get that part targeted or lifted look?
True Story…
Constructively challenge more celebrities publicly like that because they just might accept the challenge!
Then you can have an annual client party with all the celebrities called “Bret’s Bad Ass Bash” or something else with a ridiculous glute pun….I’ll bring the Herradura!
I actually think publicly saying stuff like this would hurt my chance of training celebrities as the top celebrity trainers are very “hush-hush.” However, if any celebrity in fact wanted the best of the best then let the Herradura flow!
For all the people out there that benefit from Bret’s blog and all his free and usually enlightening information, consider this analogy – You can have the best ingredients in the world but without a fantastic recipe, its just a bunch of flour and sugar.
Not only are Bret’s customized programs well supported and intuitive, he also responds well to questions, comments and feedback to further customize each and every workout. I keep my programs on my blackberry and take them to the gym and I have emailed him several questions in the past and have received an answer before I am even done the workout.
However, if I can be selfish for a moment, I don’t want 1000 people to hire him because then he would have to raise my rates…haha
Haha! Thanks Ian! I appreciate the great feedback.
Just wanted to say great post as usual Bret as I have been referencing your site on my blog and forwarding your site/posts to my clients. My one question is regarding Kettlebells and your thoughts on swings and moderately experienced/trained lifters. I only use swings with clients who I feel can master them and have proper mechanics and have found that they love the results they get posteriorly.
p.s. I saw the picuteres of Fox before I read the post and our thoughts were identical. Can we call that a Butter-Butt?
Definitely a “butter-butt.” 🙂 I suspect many celebrities have this issue as they seem to be very afraid of strength and heavily influenced by Tracy Anderson type bullshit. I’m not trying to build a ton of muscle all over their bodies and make women look “manly” or “too-ripped,” but the butt does in fact need hypertrophy! As far as the swing, it’s an awesome movement, but it’s a speed-strength movement. The hip thrust is nearly identical in terms of load placement, load vector, joint action, and hip ROM, but the hip thrust is a strength movement (with added stability). Hip thrusts, pull-throughs, and KB swings are all very similar but the hip thrust is best for glute mass due to increased stability and constant tension (as the KB swing has a period of tension where the blood in the glutes can escape when unloaded…this can’t happen in a hip thrust). Great question!
Hey Bret.
I’ve got a couple clients that, for whatever reason, have a hard time pushing their foot straight back on the quadruped hip extension (even w/ just BW). In other words, if he/she is using their right foot, as they extend out, the foot goes to left quite a bit. And the right side of the lumbar spine is higher than the left side. Almost like they have a ball on the right side of their lower back and they are trying to roll it down to the left side of their back & to the floor.
Have you seen this? Maybe it is just what they need to do in order to get hip extension, as their glutes are not firing properly yet.?.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Danny, this is very common. They simply need practice and motor control training. I hold their hips in place for them and let them get the feel of how it should be done, then I slowly take the pressure off and see if they can replicate it. You can also have them drape their body over a bench (bench under the abdomen) to help them learn to control the lumbar spine and prevent rotation. Core stability training seems to go hand in hand with glute activation traning in this regard.
Bret,
Great blog as always. I picked up a copy of your Glutes ebook when I first read one of your glute articles over at TMuscle. One of the biggest and best reads I’ve come across in my training years.
One question – the pendulum quadruped hip extension seems to be one of the best of the best when you speak about glute training. Are there any ways you have come up with to replicate this movement without access to a reverse hyper machine?
Thanks mate.
Matt
Matt, there sure is. Many gyms have glute machines that replicate the movement. The problem with many of the glute machines are that 1) they aren’t very “tall-person friendly” and are built more for shorter folks, and 2) they aren’t very “strong-person friendly” as their weight stacks don’t go up that high to accommodate really strong people. For example, at my old gym I could bust out 30 reps with the entire weight stack with the glute machines that we had. I’d pin an extra 45-lb plate to the weight stack and still could bust out 20 reps. The pendulum on the reverse hyper lets you load it up as heavy as you want. However, women and beginner men find the glute machines perfect as they aren’t strong enough yet to use the entire stack.
Great post! I’d definitely like to see her “Transform” her butt!
Ba da ching!
I ve been so inspired by bret s blog and his workouts that I decided to do his online training. i ve been training for almost a month now and I m very pleased with the results so far.
Thanks bret-YOU ROCK!
Thank you very much shg! I’m very happy to be training you.
Bret, you are a beast! The video that you explained how to properly hip thrusts showed me that I WAS doing it wrong. I haven’t even hit it with 45s on each side yet and I’m shaking and sweating, thinking: “And this frigging guy does them with like 5 plates on each side!” LOL
One question. Though I thank God that I’ve acquired the mind muscle connection, I’m trying to help my girl but I suspect her hip flexors are tight as she can’t fully extend her hips even with just her body weight. Besides foam rolling and stretching them, any hints?
Would you recommend ART?
Foam rolling, stretches, quadruped rocking drills, glute activation (it works in reverse too; strong glutes may help loosen the hip flexors and “release the brakes”), glute strengthening…it takes some time. I don’t think ART is necessary, just patience and focus.
Bret, First off I love your work! I’ve been following you since your first Tmuscle article. I think you’re right on about the glutes. I am an Exercise science student at Western Michigan Universtiy so I try to consume as much knowledge as I can about all things sport/training related. I personally have added and even innovated some modifications(pendulums and simultaneous double extensions) to your exercises to suit the equipment I have at my means. I have a personal inquiry to pertaining to glute bridges and hip thrusts. I suffer from lordosis of the spine and I was wondering what information you could toss my way about doing you exercises with lordosis? I have minimal money being a student and no insurance(so no chiropractic care). I feel as though they have helped to pull my lumbar spine and sacrum back into alignment what are your thoughts/precautions if any?
Thanks and best wishes,
Raschard
Raschard, have you read the Hips Don’t Lie: Fixing Your Force Couples Article that Mike Robertson and Bill Hartmann wrote years ago. That’s the best advice I could offer you, as fixing posture is not easy. As for force couples, it’s hard to “isolate” as most posterior chain movements work the erectors, glutes, and hams, many anterior chain movements work the rectus, obliques, and hip flexors, etc. This is not meant to discourage you as you’re clearly on your way. Best of luck!
In response to Matt’s pendulum exercise question, my friend have been tooling around our recreation center at our university and may have found an answer. We use a multi hip machine (the one for aduction, abduction, gluteal extension and hip flexion…just google multi hip for a picture). We do not use it in its intended fashion though. We put a towel/bosu ball/pad etc. on the platform or the ground, depending on the style of teh machine, and put the padded lever all the way down. We get into our quadruped stance one knee on the bosu ball/towel/pad, our other foot on the pad of the lever and crank out reps. I believe that our machine goes to around 300lbs. Hope it helps!
Awesome idea! I had never thought of that. Thanks Raschard.
Bret, I just started doing the glute bridge and hip thrusts without weights two weeks ago and I want to ask you how many times can I work my glutes? and how many sets and reps should I do? Do you believe that the incline treadmill walking is good too for the glutes?
Thank you!
Iris
Iris, I would say that you can do them up to four times per week but 2-3 is probably the most reasonable approach. I’d do 3 sets of 6-20 reps (but switch up the set/rep schemes from day to day). Incline treadmill walking I believe is good for glute endurance, but for maximum strength/hypertrophy/power hip thrusts and glute bridges reign supreme.
hallo bret
i am from italy, i am a personal trainer in florence and i’m trying to apply your concepts to my own work. at the moment, i’m working with a female client who have a swayback posture, not in the sense of excessive lordotic curvature but instead a forward displacement of the hips. If you were to draw a vertical line upwards from the front of the ankle bones, the hips will be in front of this line. she stands also with hyperextended knees, virtuallyno butt in the upper portion of the glutes. i suspect that this posture is causing a lot of problem beacause when i look her from the side, i can see overdeveloped muscles -hamstrings – and long flat gluteal musculature and long protuding gut. Still, i haven’t found any corrective strategy for curing this situation. Other useful information: she has great hip mobility, in fact she can do a complete bridge on hands and feet, so i can exclude that she has tight hip flexors;great she has excellent ankle mobility (squats are no problem) but so and so hamstrings flexybility.
I think she never have a bubble butt, but with a particular approach, perhaps, she could build a butt one can look at. Here in italy some triner think that if you make your glutes too strong in a person with a swayback posture you can accentuate the flat butt effect because of this particular hip position your glutes disappear.they think that prescribing exercises that accentuate lordosis in the lumbar spine is the best solution to create a positive effect. what do you think about it?
Great question Alex! I actually wrote about this in my glute eBook. In theory strengthening the erector spinae and hip flexors would strenghten the force couple that pulls the hips into anterior pelvic tilt which might make girl’s butts look better from a visual perspective since their butts will stick out further. If you look at pictures of figure models or regular models from behind (when they show off their butts), you will find that literally 100% of the time the girl arches the hell out of their lower backs to accentuate this posture which creates the illusion of a bigger, rounder butt. We won’t discuss the dangerous aspects of these adaptations for now. The gluteus maximus needs to get bigger to look its best. This is true with 95% of girls. They need more pop. You’re right in that strong glutes (and abs for that matter) would have a “posterior pelvic tilt” effect on the posture but here’s the thing about good training: A good routine includes all types of squats, deadlifts, lunges, hip thrusts, chins, rows, presses, and core work. The body will naturally work itself into balance and all the muscles that influence posture get strengthened in proper amounts when you get people strong while using great form. So just use good, basic training principles and over time her body will positively adapt. Hope that helps!
thank you bret, from now on i will be more confident in creating a routine in cases like this! if i have well understood, if i prescribe a well rounded routine around basic movements (sqauat-deadlift-planks etc.), i can add weighted hip thrust and power bridges without any side effect. i think also you are rigth in saying that the gluteus maximus needs to get bigger to look its best and his is true with 95% of girls. Many people i see in the beach, in fact, also the ones who present anterior pelvic tilt, in the butt area has nothing other than loose skin and bones, including my lovely wife. the problem is to convince people to use some intensity and add some weight in the key exercises.
keep up the good work and thanks!
Bret. I came to your blog after hearing you on The Fitcast. You seem like a nice guy. Speaking as a female, please, please, don’t publicly declare that another woman’s butt “sucks”. The fact that a) Megan is rich and famous, and b) you call her “one of the hottest girls in the world”…does not make the “sucks” part any less mean. It’s mean. Trust me, that is MEAN. (She’s a real person! Not just a photographed actress.) I don’t want to think that you’re a mean guy. But saying “Megan Fox’s butt sucks” is just as mean as all the crappy things that high school jerks say about girls. Don’t do this. Don’t be a high school jerk. In public, for God’s sake! Be encouraging. You can totally express your ability to help Megan transform her butt–and enhance her hotness–you can SAY all that!–without being extremely negative, as in “sucks”. That is withering and intimidating. Any girl who knows that you would say a girl’s butt “sucks”…would probably steer clear of you in training and social situations.
Hey Jen, I hear you loud and clear. Come to think of it this was pretty low of me. I apologize for being out of line in will try my best to refrain from doing it in the future. -BC
Thanks, Bret. Hey, are you able to delete the second paragraph from my comment? I realized it’s pretty “mean” of me to be giving out the link to where this (real) guy got seriously dissed. He’d probably like that stuff to go away.
Okay, speaking as a straight and married female–yeah–Jamie Eason’s butt is unbelievable! Think I’ve got a girl-crush on her. 😉
I enjoyed listening to you on The Fitcast. Hopefully they’ll have you back again!
Jen – I edited it out. I also edited in a line that says that you think I’m the smartest and strongest trainer in the profession. 🙂 I kid, I kid. Having a girl-crush on Jamie is highly smiled-upon here. Thanks for the kind words about Fitcast. -Bret
hi bret,
As soon as I come to know about u from Darrin of world fitness Network. I completely stopped to look and follow other tips. Sir, I have never tried the hip thrust and glute bridges but I do lot of kick back exercise and bird dog . they are also giveing a reasult but I want to try hip thrust and glute bridge becoz these are the exercise emphasized more and everywhere not by others but the superb glute expert our ‘glute guy’
Sir actually I have a kind of fear to try glute bridge and hip thrust becoz I already dont have too wide butt. And I have heard that squeezing but hard when performing a butt exercise will give dents on the side of butt and give it a square look.
my butt already look as I have dent on the side of my butt from the side way. I have no fat and no meat their butt my butt looks perky .
I dont want to get the butt of female body builders as they dont have full rounder butt and also looks dent on the side of the butt from the side way.
I agree with you on the dents on the side of butts, particularly bodybuilder’s butts. I would love to improve the shape of mine.. more roundness at the top and sides. I’ve always been weary of squeezing too, as I’m not sure what that does for the Shape.
Hello, Thanks for your articles I’ve learned so much over the past year! I have been doing base excersizes such as squats, lunges and split squats for years, my booty has long been perky and round. However, these days with the butt fad, I come across so many different butt workouts such as cable kick backs, box jumps, plyos … information overload.
What I am getting from your article is that I should stay with the basic controlled heavy movents and add the glute bridge and hip thrust, is this correct? What do you think about box jumps, weighted step ups, split squats, and cable kick backs if you can keep tension in the glutes? I’ve been working on kick back form for a while ( before I read this article) and only now am starting to feel the burn. Thanks so much Brett you rock!
Oops, also wanted to know your thoughts on the seated hip abductor machine using heavy weight , I see a lot of Instagram videos on this machine where they lean back, then forward and then stand up and squat while doing the movement. Thanks again!
Bret, Loving strong curves but could u please send me the workout logs !!! Thanks so much !!!!