I’m going to keep this one short and sweet like Danny DeVito eating a Cinnabon: one day, in the not too distant future, a human’s worth will not judged by their kindness, achievements or accolades, but by the strength and shape of their glutes. I don’t even want to begin on the social life-killing stigma of being the only one in your peer group NOT able to turn a piece of coal into a diamond with one flex of your butt cheeks.
If you’re looking for specific exercises to add to your arsenal, make sure to check out Bret Contreras’ page. He’s like King Midas of the fanny – everything he touches turns to glutes instead of gold (which will be worth far more in the future, anyway).
I care too much about you to see you suffer booty ostracism.
Rog’s Rump Revival Rules
1. The 40 Year Old Virgin will teach you everything that you need to know about glutes
The great sage Steve Carell once asked the greatest question known in the history of the world: is it true that if you don’t use it, you lose it?
When it comes to the glutes, this is the absolute truth.
For a variety of reasons (constantly sitting on them all day, never really learning how to use them in the first place, etc), most of our backsides are just plain ‘ol weak and inefficient. The problem doesn’t correct itself when we load up the barbell and expect the glutes to get their act together without being properly taught how to. This would be similar to taking a 6 year old away from their coloring books and snacks and throwing them into an advance physics class – they’re just not ready.
If you don’t use ’em, you will lose ’em. Friend’s don’t let friends lose their glutes.
2. Work your glutes all day every day
The following exercises take less than a minute to do, but will help take your booty development to the next level. You can do them in the morning after you wake up, at night before you go off to dream land, or as part of warm up before lifting. The more you turn your glutes “on” and actually FEEL them working, the easier it will be to call upon their awesomeness when you need it.
Create that mind-muscle connection and you will be handsomely rewarded.
Do 1-2 sets of 10 reps each side for these exercises.
Now for some real life bonus tips that you can do without throughout the day.
- When you’re walking, focus on extending your hip back and really feeling your glutes squeeze with each step. Think “walk like Robocop”.
- Stand up every now and then and just squeeze your butt together for 10 reps. If you really want to spice it up and feel them working, hold each rep for 5 seconds.
- While sitting, flex each cheek individually, which will rock you from side to side a bit. For added flair and style points, squeeze both glutes together to bounce up and down and your chair. Yes, this does look as hilarious as it sounds.
3. Get ’em strong!
Now that you’ve woken your buns up, it’s time to integrate them into your lifts. Get strong at exercises like the deadlift and squat variations, hip thrusts and lunges. If you’ve been doing these with weak, non-functioning glutes (like I was for years), prepare to have your lifts skyrocket now that you have the strongest muscle in your body on your team. You might even shed a tear or two.
Remember to lock out with your glutes and NOT your lower back on all of the above exercises. Here is a video of how you want to approach it, especially if you have a history of low back pain like I do.
Questions? Concerns? Want some more tush talk? Leave a comment below – I’m more than happy to help you get to the bottom of this.
Remember: If you don’t squeeze it, no one else will.
Such wisdom. I remember hearing Bret say that the body doesn’t really want to fire the glutes, it’s taxing. Mind/Body connection baby.
Yessir!
Rog, you hit the nail right on the head, er, glutes. Tremendous article and definitely the missing link to a major of lifts!
Thanks! *respect knuckle*
When standing up, I can flex my glutes singly or together.
When sitting, it’s like I have no control over them – as if I can’t find them.
It is a very weird feeling to notice that you can’t intentionally move a part of your body. Especially since if you had asked me I would have said “Of course I can do that.”
If I tense up my whole leg, they activate along with that — but there’s no individual control like I would have expected.
I would guess that the first step is doing those booty activation drills daily to develop the feel for using them.
Yo Eric,
Try opening your hips and turning your legs out a bet then squeezing – that helps a lot.
Start nice and slow with these drills though. Get deep into the booty zone if you will and like you said, FEEL the muscle activating as you do them. If you don’t feel the cheek moving, it’s not working.
Next time please zoom camera in closer to bum.
Thank you in advance.
How close are we talking here?
Is it wrong that I was already squeezing both glutes together to bounce up and down for funsies? Ooops.
If it’s wrong, then I don’t wanna be right!
Thank you Rog Law! This is just what I needed. Those glute bridges do nothing but put my hamstrings out of commission for a minimum of a week, making me question if I even have any butt muscles at all. So clearly I needed these baby steps to work up to a glute bridge. Is that last video of the pelvic tilt the famous “air hump” technique for activating your glutes that Katie was to shy to film for us over on Leigh’s site?
Work that booty until it works for you!
Haha…in fact I think that may very well be the infamous air hump. Unless she has a better version, and if she does I hope she shares!
One more question: I know you said to work your glutes “all day every day” and imply that daily glute exercises is the way to go… What about rest and recovery, like for other muscle groups? Or do you think these exercises aren’t strenuous enough to require a recovery period? What would be the ideal frequency, for best results? (For the record, the buns have been burnin’ for the last couple days, which a first for me. I guess I have some muscle tissue back there after all!)
Since these are low level activation exercises, you should be fine performing them daily since they’re not all that taxing.
Everyday is my ideal frequency – reminder those butt cheeks that they can’t take a day off at all!
Great article, my friend 🙂
Good memories of the seated flexing while sitting answering emails 😀 I still do it!! It is as fun as it sounds LOL
Thanks homie!
We are now forever bound by simultaneous glute bouncing! *respect knuckle*
@Jordan LOLZ me too! I have some funky house music on and I am flexing to the beat baby!
Bounce, bounce, bounce!
That just came in time for my Glute Week ( deload and adressing my weaknesses). Thank you very much!
Now, how about the Glute ABC- as much fun, as it sounds?
Actually I discovered my left glute beeing significantly weaker than the right one and all of my lower left is working on this misshap – even the obliques are stronger.
New discovery: the left foot is slightly less muscular than the right one – where the rubber hit the road so to speak.
Now I’m addressing that weak spots and working on them. Goal for the next year: find more of my dysbalances and iron them out. For now it’s foot and glute work.
I like Glute ABC =)
Work those glutes like they owe you money, and you shall be rewarded!
I’ve just started trying to recreate the mind muscle connection for my glutes so this is awesome! After I’ve recovered from a stranin due to sprinting my right glute has been comatose…I can’t feel it working when I do single leg glute bridges or single leg rdls (singe leg rdls used to fry my glutes!)
…One day I hope to muster up the courage to do BB hip thrusts in the gym though I’m the only female in the weight room lol
It’s time to revive that right butt cheek – DON’T GIVE UP HOPE! =)
And don’t you shy away from thrusting in the gym. Here’s one of my favorites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CCjT_7erO0
Good tips. Agree on everything. One thing I see though is with the band lateral walk or some call it “monster walk”, that really should be a straight leg lateral walk using the glutes. When you bend the knees it defeats the purpose.
Thanks, Dan! Next time I shoot videos I’ll be sure to update this exercise to make sure folks are getting their booty burning proper.