BOOTY GAINS!

One of the vogue body parts of the last several years is the glutes, or booty. Strong glutes are aesthetically pleasing, but they are also the powerhouse for all types of athletic activities, as well as helping to keep the lower back safe and comfortable. For quite a long time, it was "just squat heavy". However, for most people, the squat booty is a myth. The glutes will get somewhat stronger by squatting, but the quads will take a lot of the work for most people especially if you can't squat lower than parallel.

The shift then moved to open-chain abduction exercises (the feet are free to move, not set on the ground or a platform, and legs moving further apart from each other against resistance). The problem here is that now the focus is on small accessory work that should be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. It seems everyone on Instagram wants to show brand new, novel banded exercises, but hip extension with progressive overload as the foundation is the real key. Strength and size both come from putting muscles under enough load, for enough time, to elicit adaptation. Once that adaptation has started, the muscles require more and more load or time under tension to continue adapting. Nutrition also MUST be addressed; if you're trying to gain significant size or strength, you have to have a slight caloric surplus. Your body needs bricks to build the fortress.