Why Squats Won’t Grow Your Butt

Ask yourself how many times your glutes have been sore from squats?

Now ask yourself how many times your quads have been sore. I’ll wage your quads have been sore a lot more times than your glutes.

The reason for this is that the glutes are mostly engaged in the bottom portion of the squat, and even then only if you are squatting with good form and know how to activate them.

Say you squat low enough to engage your glutes, and you know how to contract them to lift you out of the bottom of the squat.

Whoopee! Your butt still doesn’t seem to grow.

Why? Because your quads and hamstrings are doing most of the work for most of the movement and they get more stimulus to grow than the butt. The glutes are growing, but not as fast as your quads and hamstrings.

Tips for Glute Growth

Do movements that target the glutes specifically.

We prescribe tons of hip extension exercises (glute bridges, hip thrusts, frog pumps) and abduction work (lateral band walks are a favorite of ours aptly dubbed ‘crab walks’).

Sure it’s trendy to squat and we love squats, but they aren’t all they’re cracked up to be for growing a bubble butt.

If you are serious about growing glorious glutes worthy of Instagram fame you need to give that rump some dedicated gym time.

In fact, that goes for anything you want to improve/grow/gain strength at. Stop trying to piggyback everything.

Download The Serious Guide to Glute Training