Photo Credit: April Greer ……….. Model: Jen Turnbull
True story: I had a very funny conversation as I was getting my hair cut the other day. This same girl(hi Sarah!) has been keeping me presentable for almost a year now, so we can usually converse about anything without any awkward(I hope you don’t mess up my “do”) moments. I used to always get my head buzzed at the local beauty school because it’s cheap and there are tons of girls there my age. I am all about the win-win situations. That’s where I met her but she has since moved onto bigger and better things, and I followed.
Anyway, she knows I am into fitness and writing, so she asked me how she could get her nice little apple bottom back. She explained to me that when she lost some weight(about 30lbs), her junk in the trunk suddenly disappeared.
I told her she needed to workout and eat more. Simple right? She then replied with “I hate working out; can I just eat a lot and do sit ups so my stomach doesn’t get pudgy?” I just smiled, kind of laughed and said “no, I don’t think it works quite like that.”
But I Want A Killer Backside!
Most of the women I meet, either in person or on the fitness forums want to build a nice behind. I know most want the firm and lifted look. Now we might not be able to fully construct a can exactly in the likes of Jennifer Lopez’s but we can get pretty darn close with the proper training and nutrition.
As I have written in previous articles, women are often lead astray by the silly dogma suggesting they be doing light weights and high reps to attain the long, lean look. I hope by now we can laugh at that asinine idea.
I am a big fan of full body training for women. Get a woman started on deadlifts, RDL’s, various squat movements, leg presses and some single leg work, then watch those glutes grow.
Please Make My Booty Blossom
If you were to ask me for advice on how to bring up your backside, this is what I would have you do. For about 4-6 weeks I would suggest you focus mainly on your lower half during full body training.
We would place more emphasis on intensity and volume for the lower body whilst doing maintenance work for the upper body. While gaining strength is important, I wouldn’t be too upset if you simply maintained the weights on your rows and presses. My main concern would be for you to gain as much strength as possible on your lower body movements during this 4-6 week period. I would set up your lower body training with a touch more volume than normal and would make sure you achieve both the tension and fatigue stimulus.
Here is what your workouts might look like:
A
Squat 4×5
RDL 3×10-12
Leg Extensions 2×10-12
Bench Press 3×6-8
Row 3×6-8
Bodyweight Circuit*
B
RDL 4×5
Leg Press 3×10-12
Glute Ham Raise 2×10-12
Overhead Press 3×6-8
Chins/Pulldown3×6-8
Bodyweight Circuit*
*similar to what is in The New Rules of Lifting For Women.
The sets of 5 are for meant to be intense and your goal is to add weight to the bar each workout. For the next 6 weeks you are seeking PR’s like nobody’s business. Of course you want to do so with proper form but in regards to this type of programming, strength gains usually equal size gains.
I would design the program in such a way that would allow one to push the envelope just long enough before taking a break. Then once you take your break, reduce volume and back off the weights a bit, you will experience some extra growth. This only happens when you back off though. Many think they can keep going and end up stalling out, overtraining and begin hating life. Don’t do that.
Nutrition To Put Some Junk In The Trunk
Alright, if you want to build any muscle at all, you need to eat more than you burn. Now we don’t want to pack on lots of unnecessary weight and since females’ rate of muscle gain is about half that of a male, I advise a moderate kcal surplus. I recommend about 500 kcals over your maintenance intake on training days only and I’d prefer your diet to be high(er) in carbs on training days as well. On rest days you should eat at maintenance and lower your carb intake somewhat. In fact, it really doesn’t matter where your energy kcals come from on your rest days as long as you’re consuming more than 1g/lb of protein daily. So yea, go have some ice cream if you can fit it into your macros for the day.
Ideally, if you were to train in this matter you would alternate upper and lower emphasis every 6 weeks. This in turn allows you to recover adequately and allows you to specialize on your lagging body parts at the same time. Some call this block training, I call it training to look great naked.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Perfect. Finally I can get that junk-in-the-trunk look I’ve always dreamed about! lol, excellent tips here though!
Deadlifts and squats are definitely the way to go. I’m a fan of any woman who’s willing to do some real exercise as opposed to using machines and following gimmicky routines.
Eat some grass fed or free range meat on a regular basis along with the squats and deadlifts and the nice round butt will come.
As the baby weight continues to melt away, my booty is a tad smaller and the hubby is complaining. I told him to pick: The chubby me with the big ‘old butt, or the slenderized me with a little less booty….he’s still thinking about it.
Sounds like a loaded decision to make….
HOT TIP (for your readers, of course):
If a woman has been a runner and is looking for booty, add some basic mobility work to the equation. Break their hip flexors open and they suddenly learn how to fire their ass. And then the deadlift goes up, up, up!
word on getting the glutes to fire. Now that I have gained mobility in my hip flexors ala MRT and foam rolling, my can actually is sore after squat workouts.