Before you start your workouts it is important to have an understanding of what muscles make up your booty and how they develop and grow. The scientific name for our ‘booty’ is ‘gluteus’ and it is not only the strongest muscle in the body, but also the largest. However, what you might not know is the gluteus is made up of three separate muscles and a layer of fat. The gluteal muscles are:

1. Gluteus Maximus
2. Gluteus Medius
3. Gluteus Minimus

The gluteal muscle group forms a strong foundation for our bodies, being connected to your upper body, core and lower body. They enable you to perform certain movements such as hip extension, hip abduction, hip external rotation and posterior pelvic tilt. The gluteus maximus controls the forward/backward motion of your pelvis whereas the medius controls the sideways motion.

The gluteus muscles are not only important to our body composition and aesthetics but they are the major muscles used in many athletic activities. The gluteus muscles abduct, extend and externally rotate the hips which make them the key muscles for many power driven exercises such as sprinting.

While exercises such as squats and deadlifts will be sure to hit your gluteus maximus, we also need to strengthen the smaller muscles by performing isolation exercises such as hip raises. By gaining strength in your medius and minimus, it will increase your range of motion through your hips which is crucial to being able to lift heavy when it comes to squatting and deadlifting!

Booties come in all different shapes and sizes. Genetics play a huge role in the overall make up of your glutes however you can definitely improve its muscular strength, tone and shape. While a lot of girls (me included) aren’t genetically blessed with a perky behind, the good news is, the gluteus is a muscle so you CAN and WILL build it. Muscle grows from weight training so forget about doing endless hours of cardio. We will be progressively overloading your butt muscles through specific exercises that will hit the maximus, medius and minimus. Building up your glute muscles goes hand in hand with leg training so you will also notice your thighs and hamstrings becoming leaner and slim while maintaining tone and shape. The more you define your thighs and hamstrings, the more your booty will pop so don’t be shy when training them.