5 Weeks Booty Challenge

The main goal of this 5-week program is to help you grow your glute muscles. The focus is NOT on fat loss. Your starting point on this program is going to different to other people - beginners may feel that body weight only feels challenging, while others will start with a resistance band/dumbbell.

There are no guarantees. This program is designed to build your glute muscles (grow your butt), but your results will be dependent on many factors, including your starting point, your genetics and a variety of other lifestyle factors. There's also a limit to how much muscle you can build at home, without proper equipment. For the biggest gains, make sure you eat enough to to meet your energy and protein needs, and increase the intensity as you get stronger.

If it feels like it is getting easier, it is important to increase the intensity in one way or another in order to continue seeing results. The easiest way of increasing intensity is tension (e.g. using a tougher resistance band or using heavier dumbbells). Remember to make sure you’re using good technique, understand the full range of motion and find what works best for you to get good mind muscle connection.

Glute activation is important in order for you to really feel and work the muscles to their best. I suggest you experiment and find what works best for you as it can differ from person to person. For exercises such as glute bridges, I recommend to point your feet outwards a little bit. This has helped me better activate my glutes. Another point is to make sure you are going through the full range of motion and squeeze each rep at the top.

Whilst it is not strictly necessary, it is generally recommended to be in a slight "caloric surplus" to build muscle - meaning, you should be eating slightly more than your body needs. This makes sure that your body has enough energy and protein to build muscles. You should be aiming to maintain your weight, or put on a small amount of weight, while building muscle. How you do that is up to you - you might like to add a little bit more to each of your meals or add in some snacks throughout the day. The general FAQ has more information - but, as usual, you should be aiming to eat a balanced diet incorporating plenty of fruits, vegetables and whole foods. The occasional chocolate is okay too.

It’s important that you have enough protein while you’re building muscles. There is a lot of debate as to how much is "enough". If you eat meat (including fish) every day, or you’re a vegetarian and consume plenty of eggs and dairy, you’re probably getting enough protein. If you’re a vegan or vegetarian, make sure you’re eating plenty of beans, legumes, tofu, lentils and whole grains. Some recommendations for protein will indicate 1g/lb (2.2g/kg) of body weight, but these are generally targeted at body builders. 0.5-0.7g/lb (1-1.5g/kg) of body weight should be plenty for most people to see good results.

Many people prefer to choose one or the other, as doing both at the same time can be tricky. If you incorporate the right amounts of resistance training and cardio, and fuel yourself correctly, it is possible to build a booty and lose fat at the same time.

The goal of this program is to grow your glutes. Although your food intake is the most important factor here, high intensity cardio may burn too much energy, and slow your muscle gains. This doesn’t mean your cardiovascular health is not important - walking is a great way of including cardio into your daily routine without raising the intensity greatly.

It's meant to be hard! If it wasn't hard, you wouldn't get results. Don't feel pressured in performing at 100% at the start. Go at your own pace, it's totally fine and expected. The key is to keep track of your progress, slow down and focus on your breathing and form and aim to do better each day. Soon you'll realise you're much stronger and you'll soon progress and be able to follow along all the way.