Build a Better Butt

WARNING: SOMEWHAT NSFW PHOTOS. SKIMPY BIKINIS AND BOOTIES AHEAD. 

There’s been a recent “revolution” you might say, of big booties. Before, having a big butt was a negative thing, as shown by the infamous question “do these jeans make my butt look big?”. But as of late, the booties women aspire to achieve look more like Iggy Azalea’s and Nicki Minaj’s (although lately the internet has been saying Nicki has implants, who knows?). When most women want to improve their rear, they turn straight to the bodyweight donkey kicks and hundreds of bodyweight squats. While this definitely helps make your booty look better, there are far more efficient ways you can improve your behind.

The best way to improve the way your butt, or glutes look, is to lift heavy weights using movements that target the glutes as the primary movers. Like I’ve said before, lifting heavy weights will build muscle, and help you lose fat. It will NOT make you look like Arnold! Something to remember is that even if your muscles do get larger than you like, it will happen gradually and all you have to do is ease up on training those muscles. After a few weeks, you should notice a decrease in the size of these muscles. The best example I can give you of fitness professionals who train their glutes with heavy loads, is bikini competitors. Bikini is the lowest (read: least muscular) level of bodybuilding for women. The focus is a lean, yet curvy physique, with an emphasis on rounded shoulders, and round, full glutes. Take a look at these professional competitors below:

From left to right: bikini competitors Jessica Arevalo, Marissa Rivero, and Jessica James.

I feel like I should address the fact that many women see improvements with bodyweight-only exercise, and it is entirely possible to do so. It is especially common for sedentary women to see these quick initial improvements. But these are known as “newbie gains,” a period in the beginning of training where the progress you see is very quick. These gains will taper off after a few weeks/months though, and then it will be MUCH harder to change your body, especially with bodyweight-only exercises that don’t put enough stress on your body to see the change you want fast enough. It is important to challenge your muscles as much as possible to see faster results.

So now that we’ve established that lifting heavy is good for you, let me clear something up: if 5 lb dumbbells are challenging for you, there is nothing wrong with you using them. When I say lift heavy, I don’t mean you squat 150 pounds the first time you try a barbell squat. What I mean is you find a weight that is challenging for your body, that you couldn’t do more than 15 reps maximum with. If that means you can do a 120 lb squat, awesome. If that means you can do no more than a 25 lb squat, equally awesome. The important thing is you are challenging your body with a load that is hard. Don’t be ashamed if your body isn’t as strong as others’. Trying to match others is pointless, and you will likely get hurt. There is pride in knowing what your body is capable of, but humility in knowing its limits.

Most people who lift regularly tend to work each body part once, maybe twice a week. However, I would suggest training your glutes two to three times a week. If it’s a big goal you’re working towards, there is nothing wrong with working at it a few times a week, so long as you have a rest day or two in between each workout. Rest days don’t have to just mean no exercise though, you can go for a walk, a light jog, do a yoga class, something that still uses your muscles but isn’t too taxing.* You have no obligation to, but it’s an option even on your rest days. Make sure you are warming up and cooling down properly to prevent injury as well.

*Side note: I’ve done the “active rest day” a little too hard two days after a hard leg workout. We hiked up a mountain. And it was the worst leg pain of my life. Don’t make my mistake.

Repetitions

As far as how many sets and repetitions you should be doing, there are two approaches you can take. The first is to go straight for the hypertrophy (or muscle size increase) range, which is 3-5 sets of 6-12 reps. However, what I think is a more effective method is to spend a month or two focusing on building your strength with 4-6 sets of 1-5 repetitions, and then switching to hypertrophy. When you train for strength, you will still see a size increase, especially if you have not trained heavy before (again, “newbie gains”). The benefit of increasing your strength first is that when you do start hypertrophy, you will be training with heavier weights, and seeing more progress more quickly as a result.

Now to the exercises! These first ones involve heavy weights, but I have a list below for those without access to a gym, of bodyweight exercises that are still very challenging. These movements target the glutes as the primary movers, making them extremely efficient for building up that booty!

Weighted Exercises

Glute Bridges

Notice the straight line formed from the shoulders, to the hips, to the knees in figure B.

Lie on your back on the floor, with a barbell above your hips. Wrap the barbell in a foam pad or towel to minimize strain on hips. Perform a glute bridge by lifting your hips (and the barbell) up using your glutes until they form a straight line with your shoulders and your knees, driving through your heels to maximize glute activation. The barbell should rest just below your hip bones, or wherever is most comfortable for you. Lower barbell to floor. Do not arch your back at any point  – there should be a line from your shoulders, to your hips, to your knees, and an arch will recruit your lower back from supporting and stabilizing the movement, to pushing the movement. Make sure to engage the glutes and contract them at the top of each rep, and while lowering the barbell.

Hip Thrusts

Brett Contreras, The Glute Guy.

Hip thrusts are perfomed similarly to glute bridges. Start by sitting in front of a bench, with the backs of your shoulders pressed against the side of the bench. As you use your glutes to lift your hips, your shoulders will slide back so that they are resting on the bench parallel to the ground. Again, do not over-extend your back. A straight line will be formed again, this time parallel to the ground instead of at an angle. Lower your hips while keeping your glutes contracted, and repeat.

Squats

Squats are a fantastic compound movement that recruits many muscles to move and stabilize you. It is important to squat with proper form to prevent injury. Since they are such a complex movement, I’m going to refer you to the Stronglifts website’s description of how to squat. It can be a bit scary having heavy weight resting on your shoulders, especially when you can fail your rep and need to bail out of it, so having a detailed explanation of proper squat form, such as this one, is important. Some key notes:

• squatting is not bad for your knees
• you can, and should, squat below parallel
• don’t round or over-extend your back! back injuries yo.
• drive through your hips as you come up from the movement to increase glute activation, as opposed to quad activation

Here are some squat variations for when you want to mix it up!

• Sumo squat – take a wide stance, about the width of double shoulder width, and squat! You will feel this in your outer hips more than a regular squat.
• Goblet squat – hold a dumbbell, kettlebell, or heavy household object up to your chest, and squat. This activates your abdominals more, as they need to work harder to keep you upright with a heavy weight in front of you.
• Front squat – a barbell squat done with the barbell resting on your collarbone. This is done with a lighter weight than a back squat, as it is also more challenging for your abdominals than a traditional back squat.

Deadlifts

Deadlifts are also a fantastic compound movement, but like squats, they are also complex, and with improper form, you can seriously hurt yourself, particularly your lower back. I will refer you again to Stronglifts, and their page on deadlifting properly. Key points for deadlifting:

• DO NOT ROUND OR ARCH YOUR LOWER BACK. Doing so runs a very high risk of hurting your lower back.
• Do not lift or pull with your arms. The barbell is moved entirely by your legs and core, your arms simply allow you to hold it.
• Contract your glutes to ensure they are being activated properly. This movement relies a lot of the hamstrings as well, and it can be easy to let them do more than their share of the work.

Deadlift variations:

• Sumo deadlift – take a stance similar to that of a sumo squat – much wider than shoulder width apart. Your hands will be placed between your legs, as opposed to outside like a regular deadlift.
• Romanian deadlift – these are done with a constant slight bend at the knees, which activates the hamstrings and glutes more. They can look very similar to traditional deadlifts, so here are descriptions and gifs of the two that you can compare. The traditional barbell deadlift starts with a deeper bend in the knees, and goes to straight legs (but not locked knees!) at the top of the movement, compared to the constant slight bend in the Romanian deadlift.
• One-legged deadlifts – Start with one leg slightly behind you, and as you go to deadlift, allow this leg to raise behind you. These are quite challenging, as you are balancing on one leg and need to stabilize that leg properly while lifting. Start with a very low weight to get used to the movement, and then you can move up to a more challenging weight.

Deadlifts are a very challenging exercise, and can be intimidating to inexperienced lifters. If you feel nervous about it, don’t hesitate to ask a friend who is into heavy lifting to help you out, or a trainer at the gym. In either case, I would suggest asking this person to show you how they deadlift before you have them help you – not everyone practices good form.

Lunges

Walking barbell or dumbbell lunges can be extremely challenging and great glute activators, so long as you are contracting and driving through your glutes.

Step-ups

These can be performed with any sturdy, raised surface (but probably not your kitchen or coffee table). Many gyms have step up platforms for box jumps and weighted step-ups. With either a barbell on your shoulders, or a dumbbell in each hand, place one foot on the platform, and drive through your heel to step up onto the platform, and rest your other foot down. Step back down in a slow, controlled manner. Switch legs and repeat.

Cable Hip Abduction

These target the outer glutes and the hips. At a cable machine, set the cable to the setting lowest to the ground. Secure your ankle into a strap, or roll the handle onto your ankle. Lift your leg out to the side in a slow controlled manner, as far as it will go. Lower to starting position, at the same controlled pace.

Bodyweight Exercises

If you do not have access to a gym, don’t fret. There are plenty of bodyweight exercises that are challenging, and you may have household items that can be used as weights. Gallon milk jugs can be filled with water, or maybe you have a large bag of rice or beans that you can hold while you do these if you want even more of a challenge.

• Unweighted hip thrusts and glute bridges
• Walking body weight lunges
• Squats, and squat variations
• squat jumps
• Hill sprints – find a steep hill. Sprint at about 90% effort 50 meters or so up the hill. Walk down to recover, and take extra time if necessary, then repeat. Just doing a few is a great workout, but I wouldn’t recommend doing more than 10 – you might overwork yourself. Your glutes will be what pushes you up the hill, and it is a great cardiovascular high-intensity interval training (HIIT) exercise.
• Bulgarian split squats – place your foot on a surface about knee-level behind you. Position yourself so that you can comfortably squat down, and drive through your heel as you come up. This movement is much more challenging than it looks, because you are recruiting more muscles to stabilize yourself on the front leg. Some people to position themselves closer to the surface behind you, while others prefer to be a bit farther away, as shown in the second picture.

Diet

While building muscle, make sure you are getting plenty of protein each day, about one gram or more per pound of bodyweight. I realize this can seem like a LOT of protein to people who haven’t eaten and tracked lots of protein before, but you can get protein from non-meat sources such as beans, lentils, seeds and Greek yogurt. A surplus of 100-300 calories per day above your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (or TDEE, the number of calories you burn in a day). Use an app like MyFitnessPal or FatSecret to set and track your protein and calorie intake. I would recommend setting custom goals, as the preset ones tend to be different than what you’re trying to accomplish. Also keep in mind that the time of day/how many meals you eat has never been proven to so do what works best for you when it comes to meal timing and frequency.

One last, very important note. It is incredibly important to remember that you will not see results overnight. Building the body you want takes time, effort, and patience. You won’t get a round bubble butt in a week, but every hip thrust and hill sprint you do will take you closer to your goal. As with all things fitness, you are on a journey, and you can’t sprint to the end of it.

An Update

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here.

I’ve had a lot of major life changes since I last posted. A few months after my last post, I got out of a long-term relationship that I was very unhappy in, and moved back in with my family close by. I got a new job (non-fitness related), didn’t care much for that one, and left that to work in a restaurant nearby. I met someone who has made me truly happy, and who I love with all my heart, and am lucky enough to spend most of my free time with him and his roommates, all close friends of mine.

I lost sight of what my priorities were over the past year as far as fitness goes. I was fortunate, because even though I work in a restaurant with delicious, often times greasy food, I’m on my feet for up to 12 hours a day. We even have upstairs seating, and I tracked how many times I went up the stairs on a double shift, and got up to about 50. Even though I was eating too much, drinking too often, and generally not being all that active, I still lost weight. But I wasn’t happy with where I was at health/fitness-wise. I was going to the gym infrequently, and eating out too much.

This is some of the food we have at my restaurant. Seriously guys. It’s a spiced jar cake. And ice cream. And whiskey.

I’ve recently begun to get back on track with cooking healthier meals at home and getting back into the gym/fitness in general, and it feels great. I feel like myself again. There’s one thing I’m a little concerned about though. Looking back at the tone of my previous posts, I just sound angry and frustrated that people don’t know how to best achieve their goals, but that’s not really fair when we’ve been fed the wrong information for so long. It may sound weird, but I’ll be going back and editing all my posts that are too hostile. I was at a bad place in my relationship when I started this blog, and that frustration and bitterness seeped into every aspect of my life. I want this to be a palatable space where people can learn great new things about fitness without feeling dumb or ignorant for being uninformed or misinformed.

I’m not a big believer in New Year’s Resolutions, since they seem to be an easy way for people to say “THIS time, I’ll change,” but I truly want to and am dedicated to changing. I want this to me a constant in my life, as it brings nothing but happiness for me. So here’s to a new start, a new year, a new life. It’s going to be a good one 🙂

Tips for Switching to Gluten-Free

Summer has been crazy! Sorry for the wait on another post, things have gotten nuts. We’ve had lots of fun trips, and a couple more coming up these next two weeks, and lots of family things. We had a death in the family and though it wasn’t entirely unexpected, that doesn’t do much to lessen the hardship. Fortunately I finally have some new stuff for you guys, woop!

Gluten-free (GF) eating has recently become one of the most popular diet changes. Food companies have noticed – grocery stores have GF sections, and foods that are GF are almost always marketed or labelled as such. Personally, I don’t see the harm in anyone giving it a shot (unless your doctor says otherwise, etc). My roommate used to get daily migraines, but since she made the switch, they’re less frequent and less intense. But many people seem to jump headfirst into it without doing any research, or at the very least figuring out how to make the best of their diet change. Here’s a few tips to help you, both from a financial and a health standpoint.

1. Don’t go out and spend tons of money on your new GF foods

I had a friend who did this. She bought GF bread, chips, cake, cookies, and tons of other treats. She spent loads of money on food that she wasn’t going to eat anyways, and the foods she bought weren’t any healthier than their gluten-filled originals. She didn’t really notice until after she’d bought them, about $200 later (that’s not a typo, about $200 later). Which brings me to my next point:

2. Gluten-free does not necessarily mean better for you

It may sound crazy, but eating GF can completely ruin your diet and weight loss goals if you’re not careful about the choices you make. Let’s look at some examples. A corn and rice blend of GF pasta has just as many calories as regular pasta. A serving of regular Cheetos is 150 calories, and a serving of Lundberg’s sea salt rice chips is only 10 calories less. When it comes down to it, a gluten-free cake is still a cake, meaning a GF label doesn’t equal healthier or lower calorie.

Most gluten-free products are still made from grains, and when it comes down to it, grains tend to be high in calories and low in nutrients. You don’t need to eat grain-free as well as gluten-free, just be smart about the grains you eat!

3. You don’t need to find gluten-free replacements for the foods you eat

To put it simply, you don’t need to start buying GF bread when you make the change. You can simply stop eating bread. And pasta. And tortillas. If you replace these foods with things like zucchini noodles and lettuce wraps, you can still get the satisfaction of the food you love, and get some more nutrient-dense, low-cal veggies into your diet. I made a GF version of chicken noodle soup that has zucchini noodles instead of egg noodles, and it’s delicious! I plan on coming up with more recipes like this that replace the empty calories with something just as fulfilling, but better for you.

With all of this being said, you are obviously still free to make your own food decisions. If you want to buy GF bread and pasta to replace the foods you know and love, there is nothing wrong with that. Just keep in mind that you can also take this as an opportunity to really enhance your diet by incorporating more vegetables where you’d normally be eating empty calories and carbs. Foods like bread and pasta tend to be vehicles for the really good stuff, so try some veggie replacements and see how you like it.

Quick, easy, cheap turkey burgers!

I didn’t try ground turkey until recently. I always thought it sounded weird, and honestly a little bit sad: I love beef, especially good quality grass-fed beef. The grass-fed flavor can’t be beat. But I decided that for the sake of my caloric intake that I would try ground turkey, and I was pleasantly surprised. The first thing I ever made with it is still one of my favorites: turkey burgers. It’s super cheap, you can make a bunch at a time, and they’re incredible versatile. You can use them to replace beef patties (duh), crumble them for taco meat, or eat them plain, as the protein part of a meal. I usually do the latter and just eat the burgers with a little bit of Stubb’s BBQ sauce, no bun, served with a side of veggies and wild rice/quinoa pilaf.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb 99% fat free ground turkey (I had to use 93% since that’s all Costco had, and I definitely like the 99% better)
• 1 shallot
• seasoning salt of choice, my favorite is Johnny’s
• coconut oil for the pan

1. Take ground turkey out of your refrigerator and set on counter. The warmer the turkey is, the less it will freeze your hands when you shape the patties later.

2. Peel your shallot, and dice it.

3. Put the turkey and shallot into a mixing bowl.

4. Shake a bit of seasoning salt into the bowl. I would rather go the route of under-seasoned than over-seasoned, because you can simply add more seasoning salt to the finished product.

 

5. Mix with either your hands or a spoon until the shallots and seasoning are well combined.

6. Roll mixture into balls, making them as even as you can. You can make as many as 10 patties, or as few as 3, depending on how big you want them to be. I roll them into balls first to better gauge the size. Once the balls are formed, press into patties.

I made about 9 or 10, but didn’t get a chance to take a picture until some of them were already in the pan.

7. Heat pan over medium heat, and add oil. Place your patties evenly around the pan with at least an inch between them, to allow room for flipping.

8. When just over half of the patty is cooked, and flip them (about 4-5 minutes). Cook until pink is no longer visible on the outside.*This is just how I cook mine, I don’t check the temperature because I’m lame. If you are concerned about them being completely done, cook them until a meat thermometer reads 165 degrees.*

9. Remove finished patties from pan and set on a plate. Allow to sit for about 5 minutes to finish cooking/allow the juices to settle before serving.

And there you have it! The shallots add a great flavor and a small amount of difference in texture, while the seasoning salt rounds everything out. Enjoy!

 

-L

 

Ground Turkey Larb Gai

This recipe is an adaptation of reddit/Fitocracy user super_luminal’s larb gai recipe, found here. My mom made this a few times when I lived at home, but I never quite took to it then. The above recipe is the first one I tried myself, and it’s fantastic! I love making this because it’s quick, cheap, high in protein, low in calories, super filling, and the flavor is amazing.

Ingredients:

• 1 package 99% fat free ground turkey
• whole butter lettuce leaves (I couldn’t find butter lettuce so I had to use a different kind, but butter lettuce is way better!)
• juice from 1 large lime
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint*
• 10 sprigs chopped fresh cilantro*
• 1 thinly sliced green onion*
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1/2 packet Stevia in the Raw
• Sriracha

*Do not prep these until after your turkey is cooked! The turkey needs a chance to cool down.

1. In a large frying pan, cook ground turkey with 1/4 cup water on medium heat, and immediately break up with a spatula. Continue to do this until the turkey is crumbly and fully cooked, but be careful not to overcook – the low fat content makes it SUPER dry when overcooked.

2. Put turkey in a container and put into the fridge. Chop the mint, cilantro, and green onions. Wash and dry lettuce leaves.

3. In a small bowl, combine the lime juice, fish sauce, and stevia into a dressing.

4. Once the turkey is room temp or cooler, take it out of the fridge and add the dressing, mixing to coat. Add in the herbs and some Sriracha, and mix to spread evenly. You can either eat now, or let it cool down more until it is completely cold.

5. Spoon larb gai into lettuce leaves. Add more Sriracha to taste, and enjoy!