Female glute development
female glute development
Are you frustrated with the lack of size on your glutes? Are you confused by all the different opinions on what you should or shouldn’t do to grow them?
Over the years, I have come to realise that the number ONE body part female clients want to develop most is their glutes! As a result, I have become very confident in my ability to help them achieve that very goal.
Although there a few factors to take into consideration, the main reason for a lack of glute development in females is this: they are simply not training (their glutes) hard enough!
In fact, if you look at any female who has solid, tight and rounded glutes, they all share one common trait: they train hard, train heavy, and train frequently. There are no magic tricks, no booty bands, no walking sideways on the stair master. There is simply hard work.
Given that hard work is part of who we are at VW Physique, below are some strategies that I apply with my clients – and that you should apply too – to make glute-focused leg workouts more productive.
The first strategy is simple: progressive overload.
What this means is going into every session with the goal of getting stronger with perfect form. How? By either adding more weight to the bar, doing more reps at the same weight, and/or increasing the muscle contraction on each rep at the same weight and rep range. Ensure that you feel every single muscle fibre on every rep that you do, or your efforts will be in vain!
The key to progressive overload, however, is consistency. After you’ve started implementing it, you’ll need to do this again and again, for months, if not years! Only with a long enough timeframe will you have some decent size on your derrière, so remember to be patient too!
The second strategy is: frequency.
How frequently you are training your glutes? Are you following a bro-split and only hitting legs once a week? Here’s the thing: as a female, you have the ability to recovery far quicker than males do, and as such, your program should reflect that. For example, my female clients will train legs 2.5-3 times across the week, and they’re ALWAYS ready to attack the next session.
Within those leg sessions, don’t be afraid to go heavy, getting strong in the 6-12 rep range on the majority of exercises throughout your workout. This might be through selection of moves such as hip thrusts, hip flexion dominant smith machine squats, and sumo deadlifts. What I would then recommend is that you do some high-rep work towards the end of your workout, within the 20-30 rep range, to promote the build-up of lactic acid. For example, you might do this on a high and wide stance 45° leg press.
The third strategy is: volume.
Whilst frequency is key, it’s equally important to pay attention to the total amount of accumulated work-volume performed for this muscle group across the week. Specifically, this is because the glutes are a body part that require a lot of volume to respond! Moreover, given that they work in synergy with the hamstrings, you should aim to get anywhere between 20-26 sets of exercises that prioritise these two muscle groups across your training week. Remember that first strategy though: perform every one of those sets to your highest intensity level, or it will just be unproductive time spent at the gym.
Of course, this is not a “one-size fits all” approach – as with any coaching program and client, some females may need much less volume, whereas others may need a lot more. As such, the best and only way to figure out where you stand is to track everything you do at the gym, analyse the body’s response over time, and then adjust accordingly when and if needed.
In summary, when it comes to growing your glutes, ensure you:
Are aiming to get them stronger over time with perfect form;
Train them hard enough and heavy enough;
Increase your glute training frequency to 2.5-3x a week; and
Perform enough volume (20-26 sets) across your training week.
Vaughan Wilson Bsc Hons