My Wife's Butt Got Flat... So I Fixed It In 90 Days

Get 2 weeks free of your personalized fitness plan here: https://bws.plus/12a Can you build a bigger butt without squats/deadlifts? This was a 90-day glutes workout experiment with one constraint. Tahnee has trained for years, but five years ago, she hurt her back doing heavy squats and felt like she’s now got a flat butt. So we set rules and ran the challenge. The 90-day glute workout experiment. Tahnee — No squats, no deadlifts, and no heavy loading on her spine. Me — Train however I want. The bet — If Tahnee outgrows me, I go vegan for 30 days We built the plan around four glute movement patterns for well-rounded glutes growth: 1. Lower body press — Glute-dominant step-up/step-down 2. Lower body hinge — Single-leg dumbbell deadlift/single-leg RDL 3. Squeeze — Barbell hip thrust, staying glute-focused at the top and avoiding overextending the spine 4. Abduction — Hip abduction These exercises could easily be done as a glute workout at home or a glute workout with dumbbells. For comparison, I kept a fuller leg program with heavy compounds for my glute workout like squats, deadlifts, and bulgarian split squats. to see if it would give me a huge advantage over 90 days. Butt baselines (Day 1) - Glute circumference — Tahnee 92cm, me 92.5cm - Performance — I tested vertical jump and broad jump to see if glute training carries over without practicing jumping Week 1 was a reality check. I’d been lazy with glute training for the past 6 months, so ramping volume hit hard. Tahnee doubted the plan because she wasn’t getting the same soreness she used to feel after heavy squats/deadlifts. Key point: multiple studies show soreness isn’t a reliable indicator of muscle growth. Bret also chose movements he’s found cause less soreness and muscle damage than squats, deadlifts, or split squats, helping you recover faster and feel less beat up. Do squats win in saving a flat butt because of hormones? Heavy squats can spike testosterone around 10%–20%, sometimes higher than leg press, but it only lasts about 15–45 minutes before returning to baseline. Weeks 2–4 are where the real bottlenecks showed up. Tahnee was nervous about pushing harder because she didn’t want to hurt her back again, and old habits popped up (like skipping warm-up sets). Food became the other constraint: she struggled to eat enough because she was scared of gaining fat, and water weight can mess with your head even when you know it’ll pass. Around this point, Bret’s 2023 squat vs hip thrust study matters: squats grew quads and inner thighs more, but for glute growth, squats and hip thrusts were equal. By Week 3, Tahnee hit 135lb on hip thrusts for 12 reps and said it felt easy — something she hadn’t done in about six years. Tahnee also had two edges. First, based on Bret’s experience, women tend to recover faster from lower-body training and can handle more glute volume and frequency. Second, about 80% of her training was dedicated purely to glutes, while mine was spread across quads and upper body. 30-day check-in: my glutes were up 1cm, and we were tied. But Tahnee’s tracking showed she was averaging around 1,500 calories/day and having a hard time eating enough protein, which could stall progress. So I started cooking more, and we enjoyed meals together again. One more point: does being vegan make it harder to build muscle? A study compared vegans and omnivores who both ate the same protein target (0.7g per pound of bodyweight per day). After 12 weeks of lifting, both groups built the same amount of muscle and strength. Weeks 5–13, volume went up. Tahnee shifted to three leg days and one upper body day. She’d been doing around 20 glute sets/week and making good progress, and for maximum growth Bret sometimes takes clients up to 30–40 glute sets/week. Then the setback: tightness built in her left upper glute, then into her lower back, and we paused for a few days. After about a week off, her glutes looked and felt flatter. A short break can reduce glycogen, and since glycogen pulls water into the muscle, muscles look less full — like letting air out of a balloon. Most research suggests it takes at least three weeks or more of no training to start losing actual muscle. We dialed training back from 3 sessions/week to 2 sessions/week and kept going. Final results - Tahnee hit two plates on hip thrusts for the first time ever - My vertical jump improved by about 5cm; broad jump improved by 2cm Big takeaway: there’s no must-do glute exercise. What matters is good form and choosing movements that fit your body. If you’ve been neglecting your glutes, the simplest start is adding 3 hard sets of hip thrusts to your leg days and paying attention to how it carries over to your other exercises and how your glutes look after a few months.