Fitness world’s glute obsession is evolving
Fitness world’s obsession with perfect glutes is still evolving
Depending on the accounts you follow on social media, it’s possible your feed is populated with food porn, puppies, celebrity babies or even poetry. But if your browsing behaviour is anything like mine, you’ve noticed an uptick in photos featuring a certain element of the female anatomy, often accompanied by a peach emoji, the new universal symbol for the perfect derrière.
More than three decades after Buns of Steel made its VHS debut, the obsession with having firm, toned glutes is back. Classes such as Best Butt Ever and Gluteus Maxout pepper the schedules of gyms, while concept studios targeted toward building the behind spread across North America. Fitness influencers such as Sam Paparo and Cassey Ho have built whole YouTube and Instagram brands on their backsides.
Gone are the willowy, flat-bottomed, Spandex-wearing workout queens of the early ’90s. Instead, today’s gluteus craziness celebrates the curves of Kim Kardashian, Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj — and seems geared toward confidence and strength, as well as sex appeal.
“The focus is on curves, and that appeals to everyone,” says Bec Donlan, a personal trainer and the founder of Sweat with Bec. “But I also want you to be strong.”
Donlan attributes the renewed focus on glutes in part to the body positivity movement’s acceptance — and celebration — of curvaceous figures. She also thinks we’ve reached a more pragmatic moment in fitness culture. Her example: The average woman can’t transcend genetics to look like Heidi Klum — but she can create a firm behind.
“Rather than everyone being desperate to have that stick-thin model bod, which genetically is not possible for 99.9 per cent of the population,” Donlan says, “we are more accepting of what our bodies are realistically capable of.”
“It’s not about being skinny right now,” says Stephen Pasterino, a physical therapist turned “prehab” trainer whose streamable workout concept P.volve focuses on shaping the butt, hips and thighs. “People want that athletic, strong, lean look — everyone is looking for that feminine physique, and the butt is a major part of that.”
Pasterino acknowledges, however, the influence of Instagram, “where every girl is in a bikini with a butt shot.”
Though that might be a slight overstatement, the social media platform deserves some credit for the craze.
The hashtag #TushyTuesday, launched in 2010 by Elana Rosenblatt, director of partnerships for the women’s clothing brand Reformation, appears on more than 30,000 images on Instagram. Crediting Jennifer Lopez as her inspiration, Rosenblatt says, “I wanted to show that being skinny isn’t the only trademark for beauty.”
But Rosenblatt and Pasterino point out a dark side: The quest to get the full-bottomed look sometimes leads women to go under the knife, or at least the syringe — a trend that made a controversial appearance in last year’s adaptation of She’s Gotta Have It on Netflix.
“I think it’s crazy what girls are doing to achieve that look,” Pasterino says.
“And I think it’s a result of not knowing how to do it on their own. You don’t have to do plastic surgery or anything like that; you just have to go through the right exercises and motions, and get the right muscles turned on, and you can have it naturally.”
Building a firm, round behind naturally will lead to important muscular benefits.
“The butt and the hips are the drivers of everything you do, whether you are an athlete or not,” Pasterino says. “Without a strong butt, the chances of getting hurt are sky-high. It supports your back; it supports your hips; it drives you through motion and accelerates motion; it helps to prevent injuries in the knees, even in the shoulders.”
The problem is that most of us aren’t using our glutes at all, which Pasterino calls “dormant butt.” Donlan says: “For 90 per cent of people, their glutes don’t fire; they don’t activate. So instead, you compensate with all the muscles around it.”
For women, this usually means the quadriceps muscles in the front of the thigh.
Firing up the glutes isn’t done the way most of us think it is.
“You just can’t accomplish a perfect round butt with just squats, dead lifts and lunges,” Pasterino says. “It’s just not possible.”
In fact, you’ll be targeting the wrong muscles, Donlan says: “You can squat for days, and if your glutes aren’t firing, you’re building up your quads.”
Donlan recommends using a resistance band, which “instantly forces your body to switch on your medial glutes, the biggest part of your butt. If you make sure your glutes are firing before you lift or whatever it is you’re going to do, that will help work that muscle more.”
Donlan, who sells bands and instructions online, offers these examples as glute-activating exercises: Kick things off by putting a band around your ankles and doing 20 sidesteps to one side, then 20 to the other.
Then do squats from a widelegged stance with the band above your knees. Follow with single-leg dead lifts: Put the band under one foot, hold it with the hand on the same side, then bend and straighten. “We’ve nicknamed that last one the ‘bend and snap,’” similar to a scene from the movie Legally Blonde, she says. “It works your hamstrings, the muscles underneath your butt, so it will help your butt as well.”
But she also cautions against overtraining. “Your butt needs to rest and recover after a workout so it can build muscle. If you’re constantly working on one muscle group, that will lead to a constant state of fatigue, meaning zero results and an unbalanced workout.”
Rather than everyone being desperate to have that stick-thin model bod … we are more accepting of what our bodies are realistically capable of.