How To Eat To Build Your Glutes - Aaron Schiavone.

Fat Is Not Evil

Fats are a primary energy source, and we must consume essential fatty acids to support our body's basic functions, like building muscle.

Fats insulate our organs, support hormone production and vitamin absorption and serve as structural components of our cells and brain…. so it’s a basic necessity to build and repair muscle cells!

Aim to consume about 0.8 g of fat per kg of body weight.

So our 55kg woman should consume around 44g of fat daily.

I have a more detailed post on fat here.

Again I'll advise you on macro splits and building muscle with my calorie calculator - make sure you check it out.

#3 Sleep To Build A Bigger Bum

Muscles need rest to grow. Your glutes don’t grow in the gym; they grow when you are asleep and relaxing.

In the gym we are breaking them down, creating microscopic tears in the muscle, we can’t repair them if we keep destroying them! So rest.

Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep per night and make sure to take ample rest days.

I recommend 24-48 hours between an intense leg and glute workout to allow for full recovery of your glute muscles.

#4 Meal Timing and Frequency for Glute Growth

Nutrient timing is not as big a deal as some people make you think. Gone are the days of “eat every 2-3 hours to stoke your metabolism bro” and the mythical “post-workout anabolic window” where you had to have protein immediately post-workout otherwise you’d lose all your gains and then disappear like a puff of smoke.

How often you eat and when you eat through the day doesn’t make much difference apart from on training days.

Ideally, you should aim to eat 25% of your daily carbohydrate intake with 20 -30 grams of protein 1-2 hours BEFORE your workout and another 25% of your carbs and another 20-30 grams of protein within 60-90 minutes AFTER your workout.

This is so you are properly fuelled up to train your glutes hard and to fuel your muscles to stimulate the growth process after training.

Going into a big session on an empty stomach will deprive your muscles of the necessary fuel which will stunt the growth process and you won’t feel as energised to train hard, you may even feel weak or light-headed.

Throughout the rest of the day just eat as and when it suits your lifestyle and try to get 20-30g of protein with each meal and snack.

On your rest days just eat evenly throughout the day and keep your calories up. There is no need to lower your calories on rest days as this is when you need the fuel to grow.

#5 Booty Building Supplements

This will be quick….. There are no magic supplements for glute growth and most supplements are a waste of money.

Protein powders are useful if you don’t get enough from whole food sources and I would recommend using a plant-based one if you need it as it’s kinder to your digestive tract, the environment and most importantly the animals.

Creatine may be useful as well, it’s safe and effective and assists in muscle and strength increases, but most of you wouldn’t notice either way.

A caffeine source as a pre-workout is often useful to get you fired up, but try to avoid expensive pre-workouts. They are often overpriced rubbish, packed with mystery blends of mostly useless compounds and can often have some nasty side effects.

Stick to coffee, 100-200mg caffeine pills (my personal choice) or a small sugar-free energy drink.

That’s it, everything else is unnecessary or a waste of money for 90% of you.

#6 Fiber and Micronutrients

If you’ve nailed all of the above, then you should be taking care of this pretty easily by eating plenty of whole grains, fruits, vegetables and healthy fats.

Since you should be eating more food overall and lots of carbs we don’t need to worry about fibre intake or micronutrient intake as closely as we would if we were dieting.