Want a butt? Don't squat- Do lunges

hip thrusts for the win. Yep.

I would put in my two cents arguing for a variety of exercises in a variety of planes and rep ranges as the best butt building routine No one exercise will do it IMHO. I do agree that for a lot of females squats primarily work quads though but that just means that you should be doing more to work on activation. Don't discount single leg high(er) rep body weight movements or banded movements either and don't forget to work the smaller glute med (side) muscle. Even hip thrusts I tend to do heavy, medium, light, banded and single leg variations when I'm trying to get optimum glute results.

KimmalyS wrote: »

so this is what a girl at work suggested and I thought she was crazy!!! Her concern is that there would be too much growth. She is just starting to weight train. She's aware of my workout routine so for some reason I was a little annoyed by her comments. we briefly talked about it- she said you'll have a 'man butt' if you squat as supposed to lunges which will shape and tone your butt. .
Part of my response was that squats tone and shape your butt as well, and they are both very similar forms of exercise. I do them both as well as other types of workouts such as hip thrusts, kickbacks, leg press- which would target the same area.
She eventually pulled out the "my friend is a personal trainer"

Lol just wanted to see what everyone's thoughts were. Just annoyed at this know-at-all!

I think she's incorrect.

I'm not sure what she means by a man butt.

Rather than thinking of it as shaping or toning think of exercises as providing a stimulus to a given muscle or group of muscles. And you can look at how someone moves and determine to at least some degree, what muscles are involved. Are you flexing the elbow against load? You're using your biceps, because that's what the biceps do.

Are your hips going from a flexed to an extended position? You're using your glutes because that's what they do.

Is your knee going from a flexed to an extended position? Your quads are activating. That's what they do.

Squatting properly against enough resistance will provide stimulus to your quads and your glutes (because you are extending under load at the hip and knee joints).

Lunging will also train the quads and glutes because you are extending at the knee and hip joint against load.

I should be more complete. In addition to my previous reply:

If you want to train your glutes then by definition you need to be training the FUNCTION of the glutes against resistance and for the most part you're looking at hip extension and femoral abduction or drawing the upper thigh away from the midline.

And so understanding this function you could see that something like a hip thrust and a banded clam or other form of hip abduction (machine) would train these functions. Do this with a progressively demanding stimulus and enough volume and you will get bigger glutes.