It’s okay to admit it. There is no shame in it. You want to build your backside, specifically, the gluteus maximus (aka, your butt). And rightfully so, the glute max has the potential to be the largest muscle in the human body. If you were blessed with one to begin with, it all too often withers away seemingly with age or in the wind. You can fix this. It is not a lost cause. I believe you can build the Beyoncé bubble you dream of. Certainly, genetic variances do play a role, but pushing all of those aside, you should know that with this simple tip, you can drastically improve the shape, size, and dimensions of your derrière.

You cannot shape what you cannot contract.

This may not sound like it makes a lick of sense, but in the world of kinesiology, a term exists called altered reciprocal inhibition (ARI). Chances are, you have no interest in a kinesiology degree, so let me break this down for you in simple terms. ARI means if you have a tight muscle on one side of the body, it will prevent the muscle on the opposite of it from contracting fully. Let’s use a muscle we are all familiar with to illustrate this concept. Your bicep muscle sits on the front side of your upper arm. If your biceps are extremely tight, they will prevent the muscle directly opposite of them, in this case, the triceps, from developing. In the case of building your butt, the usual culprit limiting the glutes from growing is the hip flexor.

The hip flexors flex the hip, meaning, their job is to raise your hip toward your chest. So walking, running, and climbing up steps are very reliant on the hip flexors to initiate the movement. The hip extensors extend the hip, meaning, their job is to move the big leg bone, the femur, down and away from your chest when walking, running, climbing up steps etc. The hip flexors initiate these movements while the hip extensors finish them. You have a problem when the hip flexors do most of the work and the hip extensors, comprised mostly of the glutes, do not play a significant group. This will lead to underdeveloped glutes and no Beyoncé “booté” for you.

We have all heard that sitting is the new smoking and while I don’t disagree entirely, I would contend that staying in one position, any position, for an extended period is detrimental to our function. That being said, my goodness do we spend a lot of time seated. Think about it. You sit in your car as you drive to work. Sit in your chair as you work. Sit on the toilet. Sit down for lunch. Sit back in your chair for more work. Sit down for dinner. Sit down and watch some tube to unwind. If you sit a lot, forget about getting a butt. You can go to the gym and grind out glute bridges, deadlifts, cable hip extensions, but you are not going to get the results you want.

What to do about it?

Practical steps to shape your bum, bu bu bu bum bum

Stretching the hip flexors will free the hip extensors to begin engaging more in activities of daily living and gym time. This means more butt work more of the time. Here, I demonstrate “the couch stretch” as made popular by Kelly Starrett, Doctor of Physical Therapy and author of New York Times Best-Selling book Becoming a Supple Leopard.

Once you have found this position, you will want to contract the butt cheek of the stretching side for a 4 or 5 second count. This will distract your hip flexor so that you are able to get a deeper stretch, more effective stretch and reduce the discomfort you may feel. Accumulate 3 to 5 minutes either straight through or just do 30 seconds on and switch sides completing 6 to 10 sets.

This view shows the front alignment that you want which is preferably the hip directly over the knee.

As far as what you will feel, you may feel this stretch from your abdomen all the way down to the top border of your knee cap and everywhere in between. This is a great way to address a multitude of knee and hip dysfunctions. A word of caution though: if you have had a knee surgery or major trauma, you may want to consult a physician or therapist prior to executing this movement. Because it is an aggressive angle at the knee, you might have to regress this some until your range of motion improves.

Parting Words

This is very simply the first but most critical step to get the butt you dream of. If you liked this information and would like for me to go deeper on training the gluteus maximus, let me know with a comment, and in next week’s blog I will provide specific exercises that will engage them. Once the hip flexors are mobile, the glutes are primed to be toned and shaped so naturally the next step is to do the exercises that will develop them, “Butt” until next time…