6 Common Mistakes You Might Be Making If You’re Struggling to Grow Your Glutes

Growing your glutes takes time and patience, but how long should you wait until you take a deeper dive into your training program to figure out whether it’s working for you or not?

Typically, changes in your physique take about 4 weeks for minimal progress (usually there are no visible differences yet) and around 8-12 weeks to discover more obvious changes in your physique, with consistency.

One of the most common questions I’ve been asked from gym members is, “why isn’t my butt growing?” and many people wait months, if not years, before realizing that no progress was made. It can be disheartening, and you may even start to believe that, despite doing everything right, you’re just different & can’t actually make changes to your physique.

The truth is, many people are in the same boat as you and the most minor adjustments to your program can get you right back on track to see some real, solid progress to your physique.

So today, we’re going to discuss the common mistakes people make when trying to get bigger and stronger glutes.

If you’re in need of a program to grow your glutes, this is the program to start!

MISTAKE 1: not choosing MOVEMENTS THAT WORK FOR *YOU*

There are a few reasons why you may be choosing the incorrect exercise. The first reason may be because you “feel” your glutes working when you do it, but it doesn’t actually help with growth. There is a difference between feeling your muscles being turned on vs. truly helping assist with muscle growth.

When it comes to resistance training, there are different styles of training that work for different goals. Many of these styles will help build muscle to some capacity, but different styles of training may limit this capacity. For example, if you’re utilizing exercises that rely solely on bodyweight or light resistance in your training, while it will target the glutes, it will not target glute growth.

Choosing Movements That Target the Glutes, But Don’t Target Glute Growth

An example of this would be utilizing bodyweight or banded clamshells. You should feel your glutes burning with this movement, but it may not be the best movement for some people, as they’ve progressed past this movement and need extra resistance to continue promoting growth. A movement that could help promote growth after this would be machine hip abductions, which allows for better progressive overload each week.

This doesn’t mean that no one should utilize these types of movements in their training; there are several people who would benefit greatly from incorporating these movements initially, as many people start out training with imbalances and weaker glutes, so this may be a great movement for some, but not so much for others!

Choosing The Wrong Variations of Movements

Another example of when someone may be choosing an exercise that isn’t the best for them is when they’re not paying attention to exercise variations and adjustments.

Just as mentioned above, there are certain aspects to training that may change why someone should focus on one variation over the other. Some of these examples including muscular imbalances, limb length, better cueing with one variation over the other, etc.

While the goal is to get you to be able to perform all of these movements and variations well, when you’re first getting started, if you’re not working on getting stronger at your weak points, it will be harder to see continual growth.

The smallest adjustments within certain movements can make a big difference, especially long-term. For example, you may be performing hip thrusts with a narrow stance, but it may be better for your glute growth if you widen your stance and slightly point the toes.

The smallest adjustments in foot positioning will target different muscles within your hips and glutes; this goes for all of your movements.

MISTAKE 2: Incorrect technique 

While it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re focusing on growth just because you “feel it” working in that area, it pays to be aware of where you’re feeling the muscle activation. This is a good indicator that you’re targeting the correct muscles.

If you’re constantly feeling your hamstrings, low back, or quads working without feeling the glutes working, this may mean that you’re performing with the incorrect technique and may need to make adjustments in order to perform the movement to better target your glutes.

Here are some common examples of movements that are performed incorrectly:

• Hip thrusts & glute bridges (rounding the low back instead of rounding the pelvis up towards the ceiling)

• 45 degree back extensions (rounding the low back instead of rounding the upper back)

• Squats & deadlifts (keeping the knees slightly bent at the top & not locking out instead of bringing the hips forward at the top & standing up straight like a pencil)

MISTAKE 3: POOR mind-muscle connectioN 

Mind-muscle connection is incredibly important. You want to be sure you’re staying focused on your form, technique, and cues instead of following through with the motions of training.

Your goal is to stay focused and think about where you want to be feeling the activation. If you’re training the glutes, you want to stay focused on feeling it in your glutes. This simple technique has been shown to be incredibly useful not only for beginners in the gym, but for athletes and everything in between.

A technique that can help create better mind-muscle connection, if you struggle with this, is by

This lack of “mind-muscle connection” can sometimes be the one thing that’s missing, that’s causing you to lack progress. Just the act of mindlessness in training, even when everything else appears to be done correctly, can truly alter your progress. Stay focused when you’re lifting.

MISTAKE 4: NO FOCUS ON Progressive overload 

There are many ways to focus on progressive overload in a training program.

When you’re first starting out, the easiest way to progress is by adding weight, reps, or sets each week.

Without progressive overload, there will be no physical changes in your physique. You may see changes in fat loss, along with other health benefits, but as far as seeing changes in your glute growth — this can not and will not occur without progressive overload.

“You need to lift heavy to see continual growth.”

This is the advice that you’re likely hearing on the internet lately, and its not because you actually need to go heavier every week, but going heavier is one of the easier ways to focus on progressive overload if you’re someone who tends to stick with the same weight each week.

Many women tend to be afraid of going heavy in the gym, but this is one of the best ways to see glute progress and growth.

At the end of the day, you cannot keep utilizing light weight and expect for change to happen. The reason your glutes grow is because it is adapting to the stress that you’re putting on your muscles. If you’re not adding to the stress via progressive overload, you will not add muscle either.

MISTAKE 5: EATING LOW CARBS & LOW CALORIES

The best way to add muscle is to make sure you’re eating enough carbs and calories. These are the two things many people intentionally cut, because they believe that it will help them stay lean (this isn’t necessarily true), but they’ll also have the goal of building muscle while limiting their nutrition.

Carbs are an important part of your nutrition, as they help provide the energy to go heavier in the gym and the “leftover” carbs often get stored in your muscle for later use, versus being stored as fat.

Calories, as a whole, are also important. When your goal is to build muscle, you typically want to remain in a slight surplus. This may be anywhere from 50-200 calories per day above your maintenance calories.

In doing this, you will give yourself the best opportunity for growth and progress.

MISTAKE 6: Eating low in Protein

Many women tend to fear eating too much protein, as there is also a myth that it will lead to the appearance of being “bulky.” This appearance doesn’t come from protein; it comes from your diet as a whole.

Protein is important for your diet as it helps to ensure optimal recovery and repair of the glutes. When you’re training at the gym, you’re actually tearing down your muscles, not building them up. The building part comes from the recovery, protein and overall caloric intake being a large part of that.

If your muscles aren’t recovering well due to low calories and low protein intake, your body just won’t progress. In fact, some warning signs that this is what is happening to you is if you’re consistently getting injured, sick, or feeling highly fatigued and unrecovered each time you go in to train.

Some easy ways to get in more protein is by supplementing creatine or protein powder in your diet. 1-2 scoops of protein per day is usually a good amount to help increase your protein intake.

If you’ve been struggling with building your glutes, which one of these resonates with you the most?