2662: Ten Reasons Why Your Butt is Flat (& What to do About It)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Mind Pump Episode 2662 – "Ten Reasons Why Your Butt is Flat (& What to Do About It)"

Release Date: August 14, 2025

In Episode 2662 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth, hosts Sal DeStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews delve into the common challenges people face when trying to build their glutes. Titled "Ten Reasons Why Your Butt is Flat (& What to Do About It)," this episode provides actionable insights backed by over 40 years of combined fitness industry experience. The hosts dissect the underlying factors that hinder glute development and offer science-backed solutions to help listeners achieve their fitness goals.

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1. Calorie Deficit vs. Surplus

One of the primary reasons individuals struggle to build their butt is the simultaneous pursuit of fat loss and muscle gain. Sal emphasizes the importance of a caloric surplus for muscle growth:

Sal DeStefano [04:00]: "If you're trying to see your abs and get leaner, you're not going to build. You have to eat more food to build anything."

Adam reinforces this by comparing it to someone wanting to build biceps while eating inadequately:

Adam Schafer [04:36]: "Even though this is a challenging muscle for a lot of people to grow, it actually is one of those muscles that you can significantly grow."

Actionable Takeaway: Prioritize a consistent caloric surplus to provide the necessary building blocks for muscle growth. Aim for an additional 500 calories above maintenance to support glute development.

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2. Focus on Strength Training Over "The Burn"

The hosts stress that strength is a direct indicator of muscle growth. Simply chasing the sensation of muscle burn without increasing strength yields minimal results.

Adam Schafer [06:40]: "Quit chasing the burn and lift heavy ass weight."

Sal DeStefano [07:44]: "It's not the burn, it's not the sweat that does it. It's did you get stronger? That's what we're looking for."

Actionable Takeaway: Shift your workout focus from high-repetition, low-weight exercises to strength-based training. Incorporate heavy lifts like squats, deadlifts, and hip thrusts to build glute strength and size.

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3. Exercise Selection – Prioritize Compound Movements

Relying solely on isolation exercises like kickbacks or the Thigh Master can limit glute growth. Instead, the hosts advocate for compound movements that engage multiple muscle groups, particularly the glutes.

Sal DeStefano [09:59]: "Squats, deadlifts, hip thrusts. Those three right there... If you're lifting weights three days a week, the first exercise each day should be either a squat or a squat variation."

Adam Schafer [10:08]: "You could literally only do those three forever and get strong at them and build a massive butt."

Actionable Takeaway: Make squats, deadlifts, and hip thrusts the foundation of your workout routine. These exercises are proven to effectively target and develop the glutes when performed correctly and consistently.

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4. Rep Range Too High

High-repetition workouts may not provide the necessary stimulus for muscle growth. The hosts suggest incorporating lower rep ranges to build strength, which in turn supports muscle hypertrophy.

Sal DeStefano [14:13]: "Pick a higher quality of an exercise... Just lift heavy ass weight."

Adam Schafer [17:02]: "Shoot for something that you can only do three... put a weight on the bar that you want them to do a hard five for."

Actionable Takeaway: Integrate low-rep sets (3-5 reps) with heavier weights into your training regimen. This approach enhances strength, facilitating greater muscle growth over time.

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5. Insufficient Rest Periods

Adequate rest between sets is crucial for muscle recovery and growth. Rushing through workouts diminishes the effectiveness of strength training.

Sal DeStefano [17:03]: "Literal sitting and resting for two to three minutes in between sets... rest periods make it up from muscle building to muscle building."

Adam Schafer [18:13]: "It's just cardio with weights."

Actionable Takeaway: Implement 2-3 minute rest intervals between heavy sets to allow muscles to recover and prepare for subsequent lifts, thereby maximizing strength gains and muscle growth.

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6. Poor Sleep Quality

Sleep plays a vital role in muscle recovery and overall health. Inadequate sleep can impede muscle growth and increase the risk of injury.

Sal DeStefano [19:24]: "Eat in a surplus and you lift heavy... but you sleep like crap. You're going to get fatter, you're not going to build muscle."

Adam Schafer [20:30]: "The client that struggles with sleep all the time is also the client that is overtrained."

Actionable Takeaway: Prioritize consistent, high-quality sleep routines. Aim for a nine-hour sleep block each night, maintaining regular sleep and wake times to support muscle recovery and growth.

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7. Overtraining

Excessive workout volume or frequency can lead to overtraining, which hampers muscle development and recovery.

Sal DeStefano [20:46]: "Don't overdo the workouts... most people actually get less results doing more than three days a week."

Adam Schafer [21:38]: "Stop all the cardio. Not only are they not helping you build a butt, they're taking away from the muscle building signal that you're trying."

Actionable Takeaway: Limit strength training to three days a week, focusing on full-body workouts that prioritize compound movements. Avoid excessive cardio and additional classes that can interfere with muscle-building efforts.

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8. Lack of Patience and Consistency

Building muscle, including the glutes, is a gradual process that requires sustained effort and commitment over several months.

Sal DeStefano [21:36]: "Building muscle takes time... you'll see radical changes in about eight months to a year."

Adam Schafer [23:01]: "If you do all those right things and do it consistently, you'll build a butt fast."

Actionable Takeaway: Commit to long-term training plans, understanding that significant glute development typically takes 8-12 months of consistent strength training, proper nutrition, and recovery practices.

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9. Psychological Barriers to Caloric Surplus

Many, especially women, fear that eating more will lead to unwanted fat gain, deterring them from maintaining a caloric surplus necessary for muscle growth.

Adam Schafer [23:12]: "You have to let go a little bit... you're committed to the calorie surplus and you do it consistently."

Sal DeStefano [24:18]: "You're gaining because it is... building a butt is part of this process."

Actionable Takeaway: Overcome the fear of fat gain by understanding that a controlled caloric surplus supports muscle growth without necessarily leading to excessive fat accumulation. Focus on quality nutrition and monitor progress to maintain a healthy balance.

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10. Excessive Long-Distance Running

Engaging in long-distance running can counteract muscle-building efforts by promoting a calorie deficit and emphasizing endurance over strength.

Sal DeStefano [24:30]: "Long distance running is not a pro muscle building activity. It's actually an anti muscle building activity."

Adam Schafer [25:07]: "Today most of your Olympic sprinters are squatting heavy... They build lots of muscle which makes them more explosive."

Actionable Takeaway: Reduce or eliminate long-distance running if your primary goal is glute development. Instead, focus on strength-based training modalities that support muscle hypertrophy.

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Conclusion

In this comprehensive episode, Mind Pump hosts provide a clear roadmap for individuals struggling to build their glutes. By addressing common pitfalls such as inadequate caloric intake, improper exercise selection, insufficient rest, and overtraining, listeners are equipped with the knowledge to enhance their muscle-building strategies effectively. The emphasis on strength training, proper nutrition, and consistent recovery forms the cornerstone of successful glute development.

Notable Quotes:

• Sal DeStefano [04:00]: "If you're trying to see your abs and get leaner, you're not going to build. You have to eat more food to build anything."

• Adam Schafer [06:40]: "Quit chasing the burn and lift heavy ass weight."

• Sal DeStefano [09:59]: "Squats, deadlifts, hip thrusts. Those three right there... If you're lifting weights three days a week, the first exercise each day should be either a squat or a squat variation."

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Additional Resources:

For listeners seeking structured programs to implement these strategies, the hosts mention their "butt mod" available at mapsmods.com with a 50% discount using code butt50.

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and actionable advice from Mind Pump Episode 2662, providing a valuable resource for anyone looking to enhance their glute development journey.

Transcript

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[Justin Andrews]

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.

[Sal DeStefano]

Mind Pump. Mind Pump. With your hosts Sal Destefano, Adam Schaer.

[Justin Andrews]

And Justin Andrews, you just found the.

[Sal DeStefano]

Most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast in the world. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode is all about building your butt. The 10 reasons why people struggle. These are the real reasons. If you fix these, your butt will grow. By the way, because of this episode, we made our butt mod. This is a modification that teaches you how to turn your workouts into butt building workouts. It's very inexpensive because it's 50% off right now. That makes it $23.50. Go to Maps Mods M A P S m o d s.com go buttmod. Click on that. Use the code butt50 to get the 50% off. This episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Seed. This is the world's best probiotic. Probiotics have been shown to help with skin digestion with mental clarity. It also seems to have some athletic performance Benefits. Go to seed.comforward/mindpump. Use the code 25mindpump. Get 25% off your first month's order of seeds daily. Symbiotic. All right, here comes the show. You got pancake, but you look back and there's nothing there. Some people call you long back. Your glutes won't grow. What is going on? Look, we know why there's 10 reasons why your butt is flat and we're going to fix it for you. We've seen this many, many times. We have the solution. Get ready.

[Adam Schaer]

I don't know. Long back before that one got me.

[Sal DeStefano]

Dude, I don't think I heard anyone.

[Adam Schaer]

Say long back before pancake ass. Yeah, I definitely heard pancake.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, listen, this is a. This is all joking aside and obviously.

[Adam Schaer]

Oh no, this is.

[Sal DeStefano]

I opened that to get.

[Adam Schaer]

This is a serious Topic.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Guest or Co-host]

A pain point.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's a pain point. Women in particular are very focused on developing their glutes. By the way, I'm going to say this right now, like, this is a great muscle to develop. Like, this is a athletic muscle. You get strong glutes.

[Guest or Co-host]

It serves you big time.

[Sal DeStefano]

You see an athlete, I'll ask Justin this. Justin, how can you tell when you're on the field, when you play football, if a dude is going to be able to run over people?

[Guest or Co-host]

Some dude with powerful glutes, I'm scared.

[Sal DeStefano]

It is 100% true. Glutes give you tremendous function. They're functional muscles. This is why they're attractive, because it signals health and athleticism and function. So it's a great muscle develop. And of course, women want to develop it because people are attracted to. It looks good. The problem is a lot of people struggle with this. They try to build their butt and it's not responding and they can't figure out what the heck is going on here.

[Adam Schaer]

Even though this is a challenging muscle for a lot of people to grow, it actually is one of those muscles that you can significantly grow.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schaer]

It's a big muscle. And so once you solve these things that we're going to talk about, I have seen some amazing before and afters where somebody is like, I can. I could never, ever. And then all of a sudden, huge difference.

[Sal DeStefano]

Listen, 99 of the people watching big muscle.

[Guest or Co-host]

There's no need for implants.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's. Listen, 99 of the people watching this right now. One or more of the reasons why your butt isn't growing is because of what we're going to talk about. Most likely multiple. If you fix it, you'll see it grow. So I'll start with the first one. This is probably the most common reason why a lot of women can't get their butt to grow. It's because they're also trying to get abs. You're trying to get abs at the same time. Now, there's nothing wrong with trying to get abs, but when you're trying to see your abs and get leaner, you're not going to build. You don't build in a calorie deficit. You have to eat more food to build anything. So a lot of women, they want. This is what they want. That's what they'll say. I want the snatched waist and the basketball butt. Great. Pick one, because that's the one we're going to focus on. You can't do both at the same time. And if you're not eating enough, it's not going to grow. And I can't tell you how many times I had a female client who wanted to build her butt and all we had to do, all we had to do surplus is bump your calories. Suddenly the glutes showed up. Suddenly this was not a problem.

[Adam Schaer]

This is no different than some guy coming to me and saying, I want to get giant arms or build my biceps and he's eating three salads a day. Yeah, just not going to happen.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's impossible.

[Adam Schaer]

I don't care how good the exercise is, how great your training is, it doesn't matter. You, you are not giving the body the caloric surplus it needs in order to go build more tissue.

[Sal DeStefano]

By the way, this has to be consistent. So here's another mistake is some, and I understand this, by the way, this is more common for women than it is for men. They're afraid to go in the calorie surplus because they don't want to gain lots of body fat. Right. So what they'll typically do is they'll hear this, okay, good, I'm going to, I'm going to try and go into calorie surplus. And one of two things either happens. One, their surplus isn't really a surplus. They eat a little more, but then they self correct when they see the scale go up a pound or two, or they feel a little fluffy, or they feel a little bloated, or they feel a little bigger and they drop the calories back down. The other option is they'll, they'll do a calorie surplus for a day or two and then they'll be in a calorie deficit for three or four days. This has to be a consistent surplus. Aim for a good 500 calories above what it takes to maintain your body weight. So if you're eating 2,000 calories a day and your body weight is staying the same, go to 2,500 calories. If you're eating 1500 calories and your body weight staying the same, go up to 2000 calories. 500 calories above your maintenance is what you're going to need to give your body the building blocks it needs to build your butt. If you don't do this, you can have everything perfect. You can be on anabolic steroids. You can do everything you want. Your butt's not going to grow because there's nothing to grow it with. There are no building blocks. The next one is you're not trying to get strong. The strongest, the, the, the tightest Correlate to muscle growth is strength. Okay. Nothing correlates as closely to building muscle as strength does. If you're in the gym and you're not getting stronger and you think you're going to build anything, it's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. If you're in the gym and you're consistently getting stronger, congratulations, you're going to start building some muscle. Just stay on that path. Yeah.

[Guest or Co-host]

When that's top of mind, you pick which is going into kind of your next point, but you just pick a higher quality of an exercise, a higher quality and value of a workout. So your entire focus is on getting stronger. It just naturally produces more musculature as a result.

[Adam Schaer]

Another way to say would be quit chasing the burn and lift heavy ass weight. Yeah, I mean, that's typically what happens is there is this misconception that if I feel it in the muscle and I feel that burning, that it's growing and it doesn't necessarily work that way. Just because you can make a muscle group burn does not connect to it. That you're, you're, you're building it.

[Sal DeStefano]

One of the most well known butt building experts who also happens to be a great trainer, Brett Contreras, he's a great trainer. He became famous for helping female competitors and women build their butts. And he is an excellent trainer. You could tell he's trained lots of people. Sometimes you'll hear experts communicate things and I'll heal right away. I can tell you haven't trained the.

[Guest or Co-host]

Clinical side of things.

[Sal DeStefano]

He has trained lots and lots and lots of people, lots and lots of women for years and years and years. And you should see the weight that his clients are pushing and he puts them through like, he's like, look, we want to build a butt. We're going to get your squat. We're going to get you deadlift. We're going to get you.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

To lift heavy weight. It's not the burn, it's not the sweat that does it. It's not the how tired you are at the end of your workout. It's did you get stronger? I've never met a woman who didn't add 50 pounds who added 50 pounds to the squat, who didn't build the bigger butt.

[Adam Schaer]

That's right.

[Sal DeStefano]

It happens every single time. So your number one goal in the gym that's going to produce the goal of a bigger butt is, is to get stronger. So this should be the key. And if you're not getting stronger, it's.

[Adam Schaer]

Probably and by the way, it goes hand in hand with your first tip. Getting stronger with a calorie surplus is what's going to do that.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, yes.

[Adam Schaer]

You. You skip out on one of these two things and you're going to miss. You could maybe, maybe you're trying to get strong, but then you're not giving your. Your body the calorie surplus. It's not going to build or vice versa. So they both are. Are very, very important.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right. Next up, you're just doing dumb exercises. You're not doing exercises that really move the needle.

[Adam Schaer]

This has gotten better. This was in the, in the 19 evolution, in the 90s, in the early 2000s. It was crazy how, how bad this was. I mean, this was. But this is also back when you didn't see anybody squatting or deadlifting in the gym. This was like, nobody was. And then definitely girls that wanted to build butt were not doing that. They were doing the Thigh Master. You know, there's. Wait, late 90s, when Thigh Master came around, like, that was the type of stuff that people were doing to build their butt, which is just a terrible strateg or doing the, you know, cables.

[Guest or Co-host]

Kickback.

[Adam Schaer]

Yeah, cables around their ankle and kicking back or donkey, you know, kickbacks. Like these, these exercises, although they activate the glutes, and I'm not saying they, they. They can't play a role in supporting that. They should not be the, the core or the foundation of your. Your program.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, the foundation of your routine where you're trying to get stronger. Like, these are the exercises that matter for building a butt. You want to build a butt. You're in the calorie surplus and you're like, okay, I need to get strong. Where should I try to get strong? What exercises? It's great to get strong in a lot of exercises, but you want to build your butt. Which ones? Squats, deadlifts, hip thrusts. Those three right there.

[Adam Schaer]

You could literally only do those three forever and get strong at them and build a massive butt just from that. And you can never do another butt exercise.

[Sal DeStefano]

No. And you can get really strong at those exercises. You show me a girl that could squat 225 pounds or can hip thrust 400 pounds, and you probably will have a girl with a really round, well developed butt. So get strong at those lifts, and those lifts should be the foundation of your routine. In other words, if you're lifting weights three days a week, the first exercise each day should be either a squat or a squat variation. Right. So like a split stance. Squat is fine. Like Some kind of squat variation, a deadlift or a deadlift variation, and a hip thrust. Start your workouts with those. And all your effort and intensity and focus is on those lifts. That's what you care about the most. That's where I want to get strong and. And if you get stronger in those, you'll see your butt grow.

[Guest or Co-host]

It's so funny because it's almost like, upside down, what's being promoted and marketed because, like, a lot of those exercises have, like, booty band, for instance, that became a big thing, right? Or like, you know, a lot of these, like, little techniques to try and activate the glute more. We're doing step ups or whatever it is, which would be great to either use as a primer going into the workout or like, you know, build up a little more volume on your days in between. But, like, they're missing the biggest moving things it can do.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right. That's right. Which brings us. And here's where the value is with those, right? You might just have poor technique and connection. Now, it is the case sometimes, not often, but sometimes you are squatting, and you're squatting a lot, and your strength is going up in your squat. But what you notice is your quads are really getting well developed, and your butt doesn't seem to be getting a lot of the gains. Your technique may be favoring your quads. Now, squats, the glutes play a major role, but can you do a squat in a way that gets the glutes to do less of a role and the quads will do more of a role? Yes. And sometimes this happens naturally. And so what you want to do is you want to change your technique. And your connection here is where a lot of those exercises Adam and Justin mentioned, like the dog pees and the kickbacks and the cable movements, can play a role. And what you would do, let's say this is you and you've been squatting for a little while. What you would do is you'd start your workout out with some of those isolation exercises so you could feel the glutes that you can get a little bit of a pump, then go to your squat, change your technique so that you could feel what you felt with those exercises. Now you're focusing on the glutes, and suddenly the squats become a butt exercise.

[Guest or Co-host]

And a lot of times we'll notice, too, with clients, it's a depth issue, so we're not getting enough depth in that squat, which really gets full range of motion and allows the glutes to really kind of kick into the exercise and contribute.

[Adam Schaer]

So to that point, I was actually going to comment on what salsa, because I think you said it wasn't, it wasn't that common. I find this really common. In fact, I think today most women know that squatting and deadlifting are the movements that they do. But a lot of them don't have the range of motion or they're so quad dominant that when they do the squats, they just get a pump on their quads and they're not feeling a lot in their butt. And, and a lot of that is due to what Justin's saying is like form and technique not enough depth. Or their hip flexors are so shortened and tight that when they go to squat, they hinge over. They hinge over. They put all the weight on the front of their quads. Not a lot of it's shifted in the posterior chain. And so I think a lot of this sometimes is a technique because there's many people that I know that I, that's first thing I always ask is like, what exercises are you doing? And most of them are cut to the point now where they know that they need a deadlift and squat. But then when you look at the technique, you realize that, oh, they're so quad dominant. That's why they're not feeling.

[Sal DeStefano]

By the way, this is why the hip thrust got so popular.

[Adam Schaer]

That's right.

[Sal DeStefano]

The hip thrust is not a better butt building exercise than the squat. There's studies on this. It's proven they're both.

[Guest or Co-host]

It overcomes bad technique.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes, they're both great butt building exercises. Squats and hip thrusts. Great butt building exercise.

[Adam Schaer]

It's almost impossible to do hip thrust and not feel your butt.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schaer]

Where a squat, it takes technique.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right. So with the hip thrust, if you're one of those people where you challenge to see your, your glutes really respond to squats, then the hip thrust should be the focus of your routine. So it might look something like this. Instead of starting your week off with squats, maybe you start them with your hip thrust. That's your first exercise of the week after the weekend when you're fed and rested and that becomes the focus. But it is not necessarily a better glute exercise. But it is for people who have trouble connecting their glutes. And I think just to back you up, Adam, when people come to you who have been training, who say they struggle building their glutes, you're right. Oftentimes it is connection because now the selection bias goes down to I am doing this.

[Adam Schaer]

I mean, that's a good point. That's what I'm thinking of is people that come to hire, I mean, not just random clients that I just got that, never done that. Because if you haven't done any, a lot of times a person who's never trained is not going to have done the best movements. Right. But normally when someone comes to me and says, hey, I'm struggle with building my butt, they've already researched enough to have been trying the right movements. But they tend to be very quad dominant.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right. Next up, your reps are too high. I still see this sometimes. Like, you know, one of my, when I, when we first created maps, anabolic phase one is this low rep. You know, you're into like 3, 4, 5 reps. And so many women still write in and say, I can't believe the gains. Now there's nothing necessarily magical about low reps. Low reps are valuable. So are higher reps. I mean, you know, you go into the 15 rep range, the 12 rep range, 10 rep range, they're all valuable, they're all novelty. But if you've never spent five or six weeks in just four reps or five reps, you have no idea what you're missing out. You, you jump into a long phase, like keep it even, four weeks, just a four week phase of I'm going to the gym and all of my sets, I'm going to keep them 5 reps or lower for my butt and I'm just going to get strong. I want to see if I can hip thrust 400 pounds for three reps. I want to see if I could squat 250 pounds or 220 pounds. I want to see if I Could deadlift 200 pounds or 220 pounds off the ground for one or two reps. Watch out. Especially if you feed yourself, you're going.

[Guest or Co-host]

To see something really buy into that idea and that type of mentality going in. It was always, that was a radical shift of thought for a lot of clients that would typically pick the same weight for any rep range you give them.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes.

[Guest or Co-host]

And that was like very common. I'd have to kind of, okay, well if we're doing less reps here, we want to still challenge our, our body by adding a bit more load. And so to, to do that and then go all the way down to three to five is like a substantial amount of load. We need to make up for that. So that's a psychology, that was something a psychological Hurdle to get over.

[Sal DeStefano]

Totally. And, you know, again, talking about Brett Contreras, he does this a lot, too. He does this a lot. Three. Three reps, max out. He'll post it.

[Adam Schaer]

I mean, I love to challenge somebody I actually like. I remember even training Katrina like this because this was something that she had never really done. She falls in the category. These two points you're making right now of like, you know, keeping it moving, high rep type of workouts. And I would even say, hey, let's. Let's train three. I want you to pick a weight that you don't think you could even get five. Because, yes, they not only do, they Rarely ever get five, but even when they choose five, it was probably something they could do.

[Sal DeStefano]

8. That's right.

[Adam Schaer]

You know what I'm saying? So I was like, shoot for something that you can only do three. Like, I want to. I want you to put something on there that you're like, I'm going to get a couple of these. And if you only get one or two, who cares? We found out where you're at, you know, because I think a lot of clients underestimate actually how strong, especially my female clients. I think it's the opposite for each. Right. I think my men overestimate how much they can lift, put on too much weight on the bar that they probably shouldn't do. Their form breaks down. My women tend to underestimate the amount of strength that they have and put too little on the bar. And so I always used to, like, tell my clients, we're shooting for three right here. And then if they squeezed out five, that's great. But a lot of times you have to tell them that in order for them to actually put a weight on the bar that you want them to do a hard five for.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right. Next up, and this one is far more common for women than for men, is you're moving too quickly through your workout. You're not sitting, okay, literally sitting and resting for two to three minutes in between sets. You're, like, doing your set. You're waiting till you catch your breath, and then you're going again, and you get a good burn and a good sweat, and you leave thinking you had a good workout. What makes strength training, strength training, or what makes a muscle building workout? A muscle building workout is the rest periods.

[Adam Schaer]

That's right.

[Sal DeStefano]

If I take the rest periods out of a muscle building workout, no rest periods. I have taken it from muscle building to just building endurance.

[Adam Schaer]

It's just cardio with weights.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's it, that's all it is. So what you need to do, and this is so hard for a lot of people is literally with your phone or whatever, you got a stopwatch, do your set. I don't even, especially if it's low reps. This is where people really mess up. They do the low reps. Like, I'm not tired, I want to go again. No, no. Do your set of three or four heavy. Go sit on the bench, set your timer for three minutes and be patient and just wait and then do it again after three minutes. Watch what happens to building muscle. All the data supports this strength training. Coaches know this. People really mess this up because to them, in their head, it doesn't feel like a workout. Like, I don't even feel like I'm working out. I don't care. Are you stronger? Yes. We're building muscle. That's what we're looking for. So rest, rest, rest, rest in between sets. And again, rest doesn't mean, oh my God, I need the rest because I can't perform another set. No, no. We're allowing your muscles to build up that ATP to get back into the muscle building phase. And that takes two to three minutes between sets. So do that. Next up is you sleep like crap. You just don't sleep well. Now here's what it typically looks like.

[Adam Schaer]

This will kill anybody in any goals.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, here's what happens if you eat in a surplus and you lift heavy and you're doing the right exercises, but you sleep like crap. You're going to get fatter, you're not going to build muscle. That's literally what poor sleep will do for you. It promotes fat storage and actually promotes muscle loss. And the studies on this are pretty remarkable. It also dramatically increases your risk of injury. In fact, nothing will increase your risk of injury as acutely as poor sleep. So you may be thinking, oh, I have pretty good sleep. Do you? How about Friday night and Saturday night? This is where people mess it up. Good sleep is good sleep all the time. Crappy sleep is I got to make up for poor sleep on Friday night and Saturday night and then wake up Monday and I feel jet lag because I go to bed so late over the weekend. No, no, no. You want to build your. But you gotta sleep good Monday through Sunday. Go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time. It's gotta be a nine hour block because it takes 30 minutes or so or even longer to get into that good sleep. Do that and it's like magic for muscle building.

[Adam Schaer]

I would make the case that this goes hand in hand with your next point coming up right now, which I feel like the client that struggles with sleep all the time is also the client that is overtrained.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schaer]

Because a lot of times this avatar that we're trying to describe to help this person that's trying to build this butt a lot of times is doing all the things, but they're doing so much of it. So much volume, so many supersets, so low of rest periods, not getting enough food. It causes crappy sleep.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right. So don't overdo the workouts. And I'll do a little subcategory of the women that I've worked with who struggled to build their butts where it was because they were overtrained. Here's how they overtrained. There was either two areas. One, they were lifting weights six days a week. Too much. You want to build muscle. For most people watching this is three days a week. Three days, full body workouts. That's what'll build the muscle. Start with the hip thrust, the squats and the deadlifts. Do the rest. If you want maybe four or five more exercises, you'll build an incredible butt. So you don't need to do more than three days a week. And most people actually get less results doing more than three days a week. But here's the other side. Women who do the three days a week, but then they also include the two zumba classes, the spin class, the orange theory class. Stop the classes. Yeah, stop all the cardio. Stop all those classes. Not only are they not helping you build a butt, they're taking away from the muscle building signal that you're trying.

[Adam Schaer]

And they're also making the calorie surplus more difficult.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schaer]

You're burning. You're doing all these manual burning calorie exercises and you're making it hard for you to be in that 500 calorie surplus that you talked about the very beginning.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right. Right. Next up, you might not be patient. Building muscle takes time to go from no but or a but that doesn't stand out to one that really stands out. Most women is you're looking at eight months to a year. Eight months to a year of consistent good strength training, eating in a healthy surplus, getting good sleep, good workout programming, consistently over time, getting stronger. You'll see radical changes in about eight months to a year. But some women can't wait. They just don't want to wait that long. They'll do it for a month and go, what's going on here?

[Guest or Co-host]

Especially because the consistency plays such a factor in that that, you know, is, is much as we'd like to think that we're, we've been on track and dialed this whole time, it just. Things interrupted all the time. So it's just naturally you're gonna have to stretch that out a bit in that goal. But as. As much as you can stay dialed and get in your sleep and doing the right type of exercises, the right protocol, it'll happen over time.

[Adam Schaer]

That's the case that I would make Justin. I think that be patient because that's just part of this process. It takes, it takes time to build muscle. It actually will come on pretty hard and fast. If you were actually to be consistent with every one of these points.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes.

[Adam Schaer]

The reality is what 10 people do. Yeah. What people tend to do is they hear one or two of these things. They're like, oh, I could, I'll try that. You know, they try one of them but not the other one.

[Sal DeStefano]

Two days.

[Adam Schaer]

Yeah. It'll take you a while to probably hone in on all 10 of these steps and be consistent with it. If you do though all 10 of these and you're consistent with it, you're. You'll build a butt fast.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaer]

I mean you'll get strong and you will build it. You stay in a calorie surplus. You do the right exercises, you get, you get good sleep, you get stronger. Watch the butt. The butt. Especially if you had poor programming before or you were over trained before or you weren't doing the right things, you do all those right things and do it consistently. Your. But I think the hardest. If I had to point one out of all the points that we're making right now, is this the psychology around eating in a surplus.

[Sal DeStefano]

You're gaining. If you're building a butt, you're gaining because it.

[Adam Schaer]

Exactly. Then giving up your class because that, that is, that's hard for most women that want to build a butt also want a small, tiny waist. That's just a fact. It goes. Yeah. The same time. And you have to let go a little bit. And it's not saying you're gonna get a big old waste from it. It's just that that's not the focus right now. The focus is to build a butt. And so you're committed to the calorie surplus and you do it consistently. And in order to do that, you have to get over that psychological hurdle that Justin talked about earlier of like, oh my God, I'm eating too much. I gotta back off. So that's part of where I think this gets the most challenging for someone to be consistent with.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. And last is you're running a lot. In particular long distance running. Long distance running is not a pro muscle building activity. It's actually an anti muscle building activity. And it's definitely not a pro butt building activity.

[Adam Schaer]

No.

[Sal DeStefano]

The only runners you'll ever see with nice glues. Sprinters. Sprinters. And by the way, it's even their quads are like. And it's not necessarily that the sprinting built their butts because those same sprinters, if you took them and just had them lift weights, they build even bigger muscles. Yeah, it's at high levels of sprinting, people who build lots of muscle tend to do really well at it because it's an explosive sport. It's like saying swimming gives you wide shoulders. It doesn't widen your shoulders.

[Adam Schaer]

I also believe today, in today's time, most all your Olympic sprinters are squatting heavy. All of them, because they know how much that carries over into building their quads and making them more. Or their, their glutes are making them more explosive. So they're not.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, I would, I would say as far as your cardio is concerned, like, get rid of the distance running. If your goal is to build a butt, you want to build as fast as possible and walk. You could do walking for daily activity, but stop the distance running, it's definitely not.

[Guest or Co-host]

I'll keep the body fat in check.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's it. Now look here we have a butt mod. This is a modification for workout programs, a maps program for butt building. We're going to make it 50% off right now. You can get@maps mods.com the butt mod. The discount is but 50, which should give you 50% off. That makes it only $23.50. Also, if you like us, come find us on Instagram Indpump Media. We'll see you there.

[Justin Andrews]

Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically, improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB super [e-mail] the RGB Super Bundle includes Maps, Anabolic Maps Performance and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.

[Sal DeStefano]

Com.

[Justin Andrews]

If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.