The ONLY 2 Exercises You Need to Fix Your Flat Butt

This is what weak and underdeveloped glutes look like. They're often the hidden reason your strength stalls, your posture breaks down, and that nagging back pain never goes away. But the good news is you only need two exercises to fix this, helping you move better, jump higher, and even run faster. Now, I got these from the world's leading glute expert, Brett Contreras, who literally invented the hip thrust and has helped thousands of people build stronger glutes. You can even do these at home. The first exercise, you've probably never done before. And for the second, I'm you. The simple bonus technique that completely changed my results. While your glutes are made up of three muscles, the largest muscle by far is the gluteus maximus. Now, this muscle, it gets weak and underdeveloped if you sit all day and don't properly train it in your workouts, which for some people, leads to issues with posture and back pain. Now, its main function is hip extension, something you do when you deadlift or when you're squatting. But to my surprise, Brett didn't actually pick those as his top movements to grow this muscle.

I think the reverse lunge is the best, but it's too good. It makes you too sore. If I have you do dumbbell walking lunges to failure, say we did it out in the parking lot, and I decided you go up and down to absolute failure, your glutes get too sore, your glutes, your adductors, everything gets so sore.

This is actually the problem with many glute exercises. It's easy to work your glutes through lunges, squats, and deadlifts, but they also come with three key problems. The first is that most of these exercises are taxing compound movements that that target multiple muscles at once. And while this is usually a good thing, if other muscles, like your lower back or even your grip are given out first, then you could reach failure while your glutes still have seven or eight reps left in the tank. And what's even worse is that if you already have weak or hard to activate glutes, other muscles can steal your glute gains. Now, I actually ran into this problem myself. Usually, squats would hit my glutes really well. But after neglecting my glutes for a while, once I came back to doing heavy squats, all I could feel were my inner thighs and quads taking over. It's why, even if you've gotten really strong on squats and deadlifts, your glute growth just May not reflect it. And finally, soreness. It's one of the things I have hated about many glute exercises like Bulgarian split squats. The days after were brutal, and it would make me dread doing them ever again. In some cases, it was even tough to recover before my next leg session, which is when Brett proposed an exercise I'd actually never tried before. But he's found extremely effective at growing the glutes without the soreness and limitations that most exercises come with.

The step up does not get you a sore.

I see.

And therefore, you can perform it more frequently. And we want to train glutes two to three times a week, at least twice a week. If you can handle three times a week, have at it. So we're going to do it with body weight first. So stand up on the platform. Okay. For. For this one, you can have both hands up there where it's learning the movement. So you are going to step back, keep the back leg in line with the torso, lean forward, and sit way back. Tap, come up. Okay. Reach back even further. Tap, come up. Now, when you reach the bottom, I want you to freeze frame, because remember this pattern here.

Oh, that's stretching like 45 torso. The exercise Brett has been suffering through is called the glute focus Step down. It actually looks quite similar to a lunge or split squat, but there's one key difference. By keeping one leg in the air and following a few simple form tweaks, it forces your glutes to do almost all the work. I was honestly shocked with just how effective it was, even with just my body weight. Now, Brett does have a custom platform just for this, but even if your gym doesn't, that's not going to be a problem. Just move a bench next to any equipment or rack that you can hold onto for balance. Then slowly push your hips back while folding over at your torso, you want to reach your back leg out until it lightly touches the ground. And then, without any momentum or boosting yourself up, drive your hips forward to the top by using the glute of your planted leg. Now, to prevent your quads from taking over, you want to try not to let your knees bend too far forward over your toes for more glutes. Keep your knee right over your foot. And lastly, do try to choose a bench height so that at the bottom of the movement, the thigh of your front leg is parallel with the ground. And if your platform is too high, you can always add a plate for your back foot to shorten the replacement. And because these are so tough, Even with just your body weight, you can easily do this at home with a sturdy chair next to your counter. But eventually you will want to progressive overload this exercise with weight over time. And there's a way to use that weight for even better glute activation.

When you have weight in the opposite hand, this glute has to stabilize you. When you're standing straight up, it's mostly glute medius. When you go down into the stretch, it's not glute medius anymore, it's the gluteus maximus, so that it has to produce a little more activation to counteract the rotational torque imposed on the hip.

So by holding the dumbbell in your opposite hand, you're now not working just the glute max, but the outer upper glute known as the glute medius as well. In fact, this exercise works so well for me that it hasn't just become a staple in my own workouts, but I actually asked our team to add it to our Built with Science plus app so that our members can easily add it to their workout plans, complete with a form guide and easy progress tracking. But here's the thing. This first exercise challenges your glutes most of the bottom when they're fully stretched, and Brett believes it may build more of your lower glutes. But if you want that full round shape, the kind of glutes they write country songs about, you're going to want to pair it with another exercise that challenges your glutes in the squeeze position and may help develop more of that upper region. Now, in the past, I was always biased towards doing stretch focused movements like the step down or because they seem to grow muscle faster. But recently Brett and I together ran a study that compared training muscles in the stretch versus squeeze position and we even tested the glutes specifically. And while you can see the full results of our study in this video here, what I will say is that combining one stretch focused and one squeeze focused exercise is likely going to give you the biggest benefit. And not just for growth.

I've seen big strong dudes that squat 315, 405, they didn't have in range hip extension strength, so they were prone to getting low back pain because they want to anterior to built and put everything in the flex position. When you have extended range hip extension strength, you noticed, you start noticing good things. Your body starts distributing stress. Better squats feel better, deadlifts feel better. You start taking longer strides when you walk.

So to build the type of strength that Brett is describing, we're going to use the hip thrust. Now, I know what some of you guys are thinking. There is no way I'm doing that in the middle of the gym.

So you're telling me you're okay with bending over with a barbell, but not with thrusting with a barbell? Come on, that doesn't make sense.

Now, if you're still not comfortable, there is a more subtle, easy to set up alternative that can work just as well. It's the single leg dumbbell hip thrust, which you can even do at home. But regardless of if you use a barbell hip thrust machine or the single leg version, they're only going to work at growing your glutes if you follow these three steps. First, you want to make sure your upper back is high up on the bench to maximize your stability. So second, plant your feet far enough away such that at the top position, your knees are directly over your feet. If they're too close, you're going to work more quads, but if they're too far away, you're going to work more hamstrings. And lastly, brace your core, squeeze your glutes, and then drive your hips up. But the final tip Brett showed me, it might just be the game changer that your glutes have been missing.

What I would say if he wants to be pure hingy, your gaze will go like this. Come up like that, and you'll push as tall as you can possibly go. Yes. That's like pure hinge. One more. Now I'll show you a more pure scoop. Look forward. Move the sternum down.

Tilt.

The pup is this way. Yes. Good. Now do a blend. I kind of like the scoop.

Oh.

Yeah. And it's good to know both you want.

I've never done it that way. This small adjustment instantly lit up my glutes. The difference? It's called the scoop method. You tuck your chin and keep your eyes forward. Then you let your back arch at the bottom and simply focus on moving from the chest down, tilting your pelvis upwards by squeezing your glutes. I'll be honest, it does feel very weird at first, and you're not going to be able to thrust as much weight or go as high. But it did create the perfect setup for my glutes to dominate movement. The key that I found, however, is just really keeping that chin tucked into your chest, which explains why Brett was holding my head. But this is also a great way to do hip thrusts for people struggling with recurring back pain. Like my wife taunting, who previously had to cut hip thrusts entirely from her routine after she slipped to this. But after Brett got her to start training with her chin tucked, she's been able to work up the heavy hip thrust completely pain free. And I'm actually challenging her right now to see who can grow our glutes the most in 90 days. So be sure to subscribe for when that video comes out. But this is where it gets really interesting. So for Brett's clients, 60% of them found the scoop method work the glutes better, but the other 40% prefer something called the hinge method, where you look forward at the bottom and look up at the top and hinge your body in a straight line. So the key is to simply experiment with both methods to find what works best with your body. Now, before you go, let me show you how to actually work these into your routine for the best results. So Brett recommends doing three sets of eight to 12 reps, two to three times per week. And this is what each full leg workout could look like. But for the best results, you're definitely going to want to personalize these workouts to your body. And with our Built With Science plus app, you don't just get form guides and progress tracking for every exercise, but it builds you a personalized plan to grow whatever muscle you want to focus on. And it keeps your training and nutrition all in one place. And now we actually have an AI version of myself that knows all your strength and workout data to give you real time tips and coaching, just like I would. And it's this deep personalization that's a key behind the countless transformations our members have been getting. And you can try it right now for free for two weeks over at built with science.com or by scanning this QR code. Then check out this video next for two exercises that completely transform my shoulder growth. Thank you so much for watching and see you next time.