I would love for someone to push back on me with this if I’m wrong, but this is my opinion.
BootyBuilding is when a girl is attempting to get a bigger, more attractive butt by doing things like squats, lunges, and various other leg-related exercises. Coaches will often market themselves as experts in this by showing their impressive before and after results, promising results to clients who simply buy their program and follow their instructions.
The problem:
Almost all before and after photos from these changes are simply explained by other things than growing glute muscle, usually it’s just a change in posture. In the first photo, there might be bad lighting, bad angle, and bad clothing choice. Then for the after, we have pelvis tilted, better clothing, better camera angle.
Another common change is simply faking the gains with a BBL (Brazilian butt lift) where fat is grafted from one area of the body to the buttox.
But what about the True before and after photos where there was no BBL, no camera tricks or posture change? This is usually when someone is critically underweight and is lacking fat all over their body, then eats enough food to get to a healthy bodyfat percentage. So essentially, the “after” is what the person would have looked like all along if they had been a healthy weight.
This all comes down to the fact that a nice buttox is mostly made of FAT, not Muscle. Does building muscle under that fat make it bigger? A little, but no where near the amount that the before and after coaches try to make it seem. If you want to maximize the size of your buttox, I would focus on your hormone health, your bodyfat % and weight, and then muscle growth as the last piece of the puzzle. Hormones and genetics tell your body where to store fat. Your weight and diet control how much fat you have to work with. Muscle under that fat is only going to change so much when the first two are predominantly the main driver of size and shape of buttox.
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first time debunking fitness uh?
When you lift weights you won’t really get a bigger looking butt unless you put on weight. That’s probably going to come from muscle and fat. A bit of bulking basically.
Your thighs are going to store more fat as well. That’s pretty common with mena and women who do leg lifts. You’ll find quickly that it’s hard to fit into slim/well fitted pants, even though you have plenty of room in your waist
….there are scammers across the health industry. Before bodybuilding it was Herbalife and colon cleanses. Bodybuilding is a legitimate sport with a huge community and a very low bar to entry for most end goals–it was really just ripe pickings.
I think you are factually incorrect. A woman can focus on her glutes and grow her butt. We can control muscle more than we can control fat
Important to also note that many women are on gear and it’s not always possible to get a large butt naturally.
Hmm, you’re right that a “big” butt usually has a lot of fat, but I think muscle mass is also important – it is a huge muscle after all. I used to dance as a kid and teenager and had a “nice” butt (big but fit, if that makes sense). I didn’t go to the gym or go out of my way to work it out, but just through dance it must’ve gotten worked out a lot. Eventually I stopped dance and became more sedentary, and there is a huge change – it shrunk, it’s not nearly as nice. And when I have my more active phases it gets nicer again. That suggests to me that the muscle mass definitely has something to do with it. Otherwise it’s just soft fat, like boobs.
Bootybuilding is more lucrative for guys is what you mean. They can build more muscle there than women.
You can’t target fat loss or muscle 100 percent. When you get fit you get fit everywhere but it takes years. Yes you just discovered that like 99 percent of online models take roids or epic plus plastic surgery to look that way. But it is entirely possible for women to get a huge ass from working out. I’ve seen countless natty girl transformations but that comes from eating a fuck ton, bulking, cutting, and years of work.
I mean you can build your glutes but it takes yeeeeeeeaaarsss before anyone can tell
I’m not a personal trainer but I’ve been going to the gym for 15+ years, and your glutes are a muscle like every other muscle. Add onto that they are the largest muscle in your body.
Some butt size comes from fat, to varying degrees, but there are absolutely massive differences in glute size that can be made over a period of 5 years.
Google Wellness Olympia Winners (a bodybuilding category for women that basically emphasizes lower body development) and you can see some extreme examples of how glute size can be increased through targeted training. To add to this these women are very lean on stage so the actual glute composition is minimally fat in these photos.
https://www.evogennutrition.com/blogs/news/build-poppin-3d-glutes-with-dr-sunny-andrews-and-hany-rambod-3-weeks-out-from-the-arnold-wellness-international
Hell, even as a man with no specific focus on glutes, over the years I’ve been training I’ve added a massive amount of size to my glutes.
I never got big booty glutes by exercise, but I definitely had a pancake booty before working out, which I no longer have!
Can’t up vote this cause it’s simply wrong.
Next you’re gonna tell me spot reduction is a myth. /s
This is wrong. You can build a booty with glute work, mostly squats and its variations. What I see as the problem especially when it comes to women is they don’t push themselves. They often take this light weight approach with high volume rather than squatting heavy to really build muscle. The light weight high volume approach can only get you so far until your body has gotten used to that stimulus and decides it doesn’t need to build more muscle because it doesn’t need to
Probably not an unpopular opinion. I think these days most people are skeptical of claims that the fitness industry makes.
In the absolute, you are incorrect. It is possible to prioritize glute hypertrophy to the point that it significantly changes the size and shape. The reality is that it takes hard work and time. Years of hard training. Even if you’re on gear, it’ll still take a long time and lots of hard work to cause those changes. Aline Dessine and Brianna Alexander are examples of women who, over the course of years, built up impressive glutes. I have no idea if either are on gear. But both are lean and have, over the years, shown multiple before/after photos and videos showing their changes. They’re hardly the only ones.
In practice, you’re correct in that the fitness industry is highly misleading on this topic (and most topics). No one is building overdeveloped glutes by doing a few hundred kettlebell swings a week and some lunges. Overdeveloped glutes seem to require heavy (500+ lbs) hip thrust sets weekly. Working up to that weight for a single can take quite a while, let alone multiple sets. We’re talking years. And that’s where the fitness industry is most misleading: how long building muscle takes.
But, as they say, we’re all going to get older anyway. If overdeveloped glutes are what one wants, the path is hard but clear. Heavy, hypertrophy-focused glute work for 3-5 years. And maybe gear.
Somebody wasn’t around in the 90s pre mix a lot era because they’re sure doing something different now.