Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2777: Why Your Butt Is Flat

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

Why Your Butt Is Flat The anatomy of the glute and the role of origin and insertion in genetic differences. (2:03) Don't make these mistakes! (7:20) 5 Reasons Why Your Butt Is Flat #1 - You aren't eating enough. (8:41) #2 - You aren't trying to get strong. (12:06) #3 - You have a sleepy butt. (13:33) #4 - Your intensity is too high. (19:18) #5 - Your intensity is too low. (21:28) Related Links/Products Mentioned Build Your Butt Masterclass Visit Troscriptions for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP for 10% off your first order. ** January Promotion: Code NEWYEAR50 at checkout for 50% off the following programs: MAPS Starter, Transform, Anabolic, and Performance! Mind Pump Store Mind Pump #2652: How Undereating is Making You Fat & Unhealthy Mind Pump #2567: Women Who Lift: Breaking Myths and Building Muscle Mind Pump #1667: The Best Exercises You Can Do to Develop the Perfect Butt Mind Pump #2155: The Art & Science of Building Perfect Butts With Bret Contreras Mind Pump #2517: Hip Thrusts vs Squats… Which Builds a Rounder Butt? Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned  Bret Contreras PhD (@bretcontreras1) Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump. Mind pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast in the world. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we talk about why your butt is flat and what you can do about it. By the way, we have a free butt building master class, okay, that breaks down the most effective exercise.

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Enjoy the rest of the show. You want to build your butt. It's not happening. We're going to talk about why your butt is flat and what you can do about it right now. Let's fix that pancake butt. Let's first discuss a little bit of the anatomy of the glute and what a difference. The origin insertion can genetically put, not genetically, but like organically, I guess. No, genetics right.

Yeah. Yeah, because your genetics play a role, a big role in the shape of a muscle in the sense of the origin and insertion. So if I already use my bicep as an example, a long bicep has a larger muscle belly. So there's more potential muscle in there. Now, that being said, a long muscle belly takes longer to fill out, right? A shorter muscle will look rounder, faster because it's short versus one that's long. So you can see this with glutes. You have really long glutes.

Once you build them, you can have a really big round butt. But it could take a lot longer versus the shorter origin insertion that kind of pops out sooner. So your genetics will play a role in some of this. Nonetheless, you could build a muscle regardless. Regardless. But I wanted to bring this up because this was a very common thing that I would explain to somebody who came to me as a trainer and would describe their butt. I had this long flat butt and my friend so-and-so

or they would point out a butt and I can tell by I could see the person and tell you that there's a genetic difference. Like you have this long origin and insertion and so it's going to be this long surface area

that's going to give the illusion of kind of having this longer flat butt and the girl you're pointing at and just showing me I can tell has a very short origin insertion which before she even, if she even squats or did all the things that you need to do to build a butt

has already. already kind of got this kind of bubbly look that you're trying on. Now, that's not to say, we can't build yours to have this incredible round, bubbly look. But a lot of times we get into this comparison of, I want that, that look or that butt. And like, it will, it'll look different. I mean, arguably, it could look better, depending on what you prefer or what somebody prefers or not. But it's no different than the guy who, to your bicep analogy, is like, you know, how do you build that peak? My buddy's got this, like, ball. It looks like a little. cannonball with a hard peak like that.

And I feel like I have this kind of long arm. And that's your origin and insertion determines a lot of the way you look from the start. But nonetheless, you build it. It's a muscle so we can definitely build and create that. Yeah. And the cool thing about the glutes,

and this is true for all muscles, but some muscles have kind of this notoriety for being difficult to develop. It's like calves is a common one where people are like, oh, they're really hard to build. some muscles seem to. I can't really point to any data. But what I can point to is like the bodybuilding world

or the space where people like to build muscle. And some muscles seem to respond really, really well to strength training versus others. Generally speaking, glutes are one of those muscles that if you do the right things, they'll build. Oh, yeah. They'll build, you know. Some people that have stubborn glutes, honestly,

we're going to talk about the reasons why you're but may not be growing. This is almost always the case. What we're going to say right now, if you're listening and your training and your glutes are not responding or you've always had a flat butt or whatever and you want to build them, like, you address these issues right here and then give yourself some time, they're going to build. It's always one of these things or a combination of these things. It's never not. The question becomes, you know, which one are you or which one of these things are you not doing or relates to you and or is it multiple. And many times it's multiple. Many times it's a couple of these things that we need to tweak, which I loved

helping somebody in this situation because you take somebody who has been, feels like they've been trying really hard to achieve this and has been failing at it for a really long time. And it's like, again, no different than a guy who comes to me says, I want to build my biceps. It's like, oh, it's, we definitely can. Yeah, this isn't an accessory muscle. This is a major muscle. A big mover. group. A big movement. Your body benefits from having, you know, that type of like strength and size in your glutes. So, you know, your body already wants to build and develop.

We just have to give it the right materials and right stimulus. Yeah. It's interesting you said that because the, if you look at athletes, in particular, athletes that compete outside of the water, your hips, these muscles, the glutes, I mean, you often standing up. This is what makes you, this is what gives you power. It's also a distinctive human muscle. So when you look at primates, one of the muscles that is distinctly different in humans are the glutes because we stand upright.

We have these really big glutes. If you look at a gorilla, like a gorilla is a big muscular gorilla. They have small glutes. Yeah. Because they walk. They're not upright as much. That's right. So this muscle has the potential to develop, you guys.

And if you do these things that we're going to talk about, it's going to happen. And you've got to give it time, too, okay? So things don't happen overnight. Keep that in mind. I also, since you brought this up with, like, how important. Okay, don't make the mistake of, okay, so you'll see sprinters, ice skaters, volleyball players, they tend to have great glutes, right? And so what we tend to correlate with that is, oh, those exercise, so they jump a lot.

And they do ice skaters as an exercise. It's an explosive. Right. And so you try and emulate a lot of these athletic movements that those athletes do in pursuit of having a butt. versus realizing like, oh, no, the fact that these girls have good glutes, that's what makes them good at their sport. That's right. You know what I'm saying? And so don't make that mistake because that's a big mistake that I think some people make is they look and guys are just guilty of doing this also.

They look at a sport like football and they're like, oh, I want to look at that guy. So they do these drills like football players do it. It's like, no. That's not how that's not how this. No, there are genetic polymorphisms that will give you an advantage in particular sports. And for many sports, having big, strong glutes gives you that. advantage. So it's not that volleyball builds your glutes. It's that if you probably have strong glutes, along with other things, probably going to be tall and other things, then you're going to be

better at volleyball. That's helpful. That's right. This is like, this would be like me saying if I swim a lot like Michael Phelps, I'm going to have really short legs. That's not going to happen. But the fact that they have short legs gives them an advantage in the pool. So let's start with the first one. And now most people who are who really want to build their butt are women. Okay, so men typically don't hire trainers and say, number one for me is to build my butt. They may say something like, say something like I want a better squat or I'll be strong, but this is not typically a muscle that men are really focused on developing. We want a perky, bubbly butt.

Which, by the way, is interesting to me because when women rank muscle groups, they talk about they like it. They like it in men, okay? But nonetheless, typically it's women that we're talking to. And so the first thing that we're going to mention here is very common. among women who are strength trained, and in particular in women who strength train, who struggle to develop any muscle, including the glutes, which is they're not eating enough. They're just not eating enough.

And this is because they're strength training to get a lean, you know, sculpted physique. And so they go into it, and this is what they do. They start strength training. I want to build muscle, but I also want to be lean. And so I'm going to eat very little and strength train. You're not going to build anything if you don't eat enough. It's just not going to happen. In fact, if you eat little enough, you can strength train and actually develop osteopenia and even osteoporosis.

So strength training all you want, send the perfect muscle building signal with the perfect routine. If you're not eating enough calories, if you're not eating enough protein, you're just not going to build. You won't build a butt. In fact, I can think off the top of my head now at least three clients that I trained where this was the only issue. Yeah. Everything else was good. Just more calories. They hired me and they were like a 15% body fat and they wanted to build their

button. I'm like, we got to eat more food. Watch what happens. And then boom, the butt bill. Well, to use Justin's material analogy and I used to love to give this. It's like, okay, I've got the great program. You're pushing hard enough through the exercises. So we have the plan, the blueprints.

We have all the tools. But then you're not giving me any material. I have no wood. And you want me to build a house. Yeah. I can have all the best plans, all the greatest tools, but I cannot build a house. without the wood, without the material. And so you've got, and it's not like,

you can't swing by and give me just two planks of wood and then leave. Like you consistently, you consistently have got to give me material until that house is built. And I think that's one of the biggest mistakes. It's like, that might hit for somebody to go like, oh, okay, yeah, that analogy kind of makes sense. Like, I'll bring some extra wood.

You bring extra wood one time and then you don't, again, it's like it goes. Like you have to, until it is built, you've got to consistently be in this, you're building this. salary surplus in order for us to put it to put it differently. You need to eat enough protein, enough fats and enough carbs. Because yes, carbs help building muscle as well and enough total calories to make this happen.

And if you don't do that, nothing you do will get your butt to grow. And to put it differently again, you got to gain weight. Oh, everybody's going to get scared now. But you want to build, you're going to probably gain a little weight, you guys. So if you're listening right now and you're like, I want to add two inches to my butt. But you don't want to gain any weight. How's that going to happen? Are you going to get me leaner?

No, you've got to... Filled with air? You've got to gain a little bit. So you have to eat in a calorie surplus. Eat your target body weight and protein. And don't avoid carbs and fats. You got to eat those as well. Because you can also hit your protein targets,

but have so low of calories that it's still not going to happen. You're still not going to build. Well, and it feeds right into your second point, which you're fueling your body in order to get strong. That's right. because getting strong in a calorie deficit is really difficult to do. It is. Even if you, especially if you've been training for a while and you've gotten past those

newbie beginner gains and your body's become adapted to whatever you're doing and you're kind of plateaued. Like, body needs a calorie surplus for you to continue to get stronger. And that should be the main focus. Yes. So, and so here's what we mean by this. If you're trying to build anything, right, that's your goal. My goal is to build my butt.

Well, here's the real goal I want to get stronger because getting stronger will lead to build it your butt. So many women will strength train with the attempt to shape a muscle, sculpted muscle, build a muscle like the glutes, but they don't pay attention how strong they're getting or not getting. So to them, an exercise is just an exercise. So I'm going to go in, I'm going to do my five sets of this, my three sets of that. It's the same weight I used last week and the same weight I used the month before.

Nothing's going to happen. you're going to have to get stronger, especially if you're in the first four years or so of your training. Get stronger and the muscle will follow. So your real goal is this. This is your goal here with strength training. You want to build your butt? Get strong at the exercises that build the butt.

You add 30 pounds to a squat or a hip thrust or whatever. Your butt's going to look different. Yeah. It'll grow. Get strong. The next issue, now this one is frustrating. This next one is super frustrating because you may be eating enough. you may be doing some of the best exercises.

And what's happening is your hamstrings, your quads are growing. Everything else seems to be helping. And you might be getting stronger, right? And you're getting stronger, but why is my butt not look any different? And so we call this sleepy butt syndrome. That's not a technical term.

Yeah, you don't feel that stimulus in the glutes. You're really feeling a lot. Your quads typically. Yes. It's taken over. By the way, you know this is really common. Very common. This is really common in women who did a lot of running.

Yes. for years and then they go to do strength training. Yeah, it's hardwired. They become quad and calf dominant from running. Then they go squat and squats are one of the best exercises for building your butt. It's at the top. But you can quad squat. You can squat in a way to where a lot of load is on the quads and the glute is just

playing a supportive role and not a prime mover. Well, simplify or break down what's happening on a neurological level when we run repetitively for years. what are you training the brain in relation to the quads and the calves and then when you decide because this is such a common story. A very common story you're telling right now

where somebody has used running as their primary source of exercise for maybe years or even decades sometimes and then okay they caught all right it's time to lift weights I get it I understand it that makes sense why I want to build muscle okay I'm now doing it

and then they start to do the right movements feed the ball do all the things but then they're like my quad just keep going Explain what's happening on a neurological level why that is so difficult for that X runner, X group X class person to get their butt to grow and there just seems their quad seem to grow. Yeah, if you do a lot of distance running,

then what's happening is you're getting a lot of quad and cath activation. It's not strength training, but they're activating quite a bit. And the glutes are kind of playing the supportive stabilizing role. And so you just get really good at using certain muscles. Then you go to do a squat, a bar. barbell squat.

And those muscles essentially do most of the work. So you may add 30 pounds to your barbedo squat, but really it's like 25 pounds of it went to your quads. And maybe five pounds went to your glutes. So your glutes may respond a little bit, but not much. In fact, you start to create more of an imbalance. You start to look in the mirror. You're like, well, my quads really don't match my glutes now.

Yeah. And so what's going on here? It's just a lot of volume over time of conditioning the muscles to contract to take the work on. And so you're just repetitively presenting the stimulus, like, to your quads and to your calves and to this operating system. Anytime there's stress, any kind of load, like the work is going to go here. And so to now have to kind of peel back, we have to, like, show it a completely different operating system now. So that way our glutes get stimuli. Yeah.

So here's what I've used, I've used this example before, but let's say you've always typed with two fingers. and you can get up to like 60, 70 words a minute with two fingers. Yeah. And then I come to you and I go, hey, there's this faster way to type. You can use all of your fingers. Now, you're going to be slower at first with all your fingers. But what if I come up to you? It takes a lot of practice.

I show you the first day. This is the right way to type. You're like, cool. And then I go, ready? We're going to type as fast as you can. And you're like, well, I got to go as fast as I can. I'm going to revert back to the other way because I'm still faster doing it the other way. So if you move a particular way, then you go put load on your back and you stress your body.

It's going to go right back to what it knows. which is using those other muscles and not the glutes. Now there are some exercises. First off, it's a technique thing. But second, there are some exercises that are really good for this. Hip thrust. Well, this is why I actually think... Eliminates it.

Why Red Contreras became famous. Yes. And where, I mean, his research that he did on this with glute activation and the value of it at just the right time that I feel like women's strength training was really starting to take off, really highlighted how valuable of a movement like that is, for, especially for somebody who has ran most of their life. And it's been trying squats and squads just aren't building the butt. That's right.

And that's why this is why the hit thrust looks so popular or why many people will argue and debate it as superior than squats are, even though we know that in the, in the context of like twin studies or we have people that actually can't. Good activation across the board. Yeah. Squads are great. Yeah, squats are incredible. But what happens is it's very common that you have quad-dominant.

and a hip thrust movement does such a good job. But you don't want to stop there, right? So I always, so I use the hip thrust to always teach a client because of how valuable it is, but I always wanted to explain, like, well, we want to still get to the place where you can squat and actually fire your glutes too. Like that's, we're using this as a primary lead exercise. Just how you recruit it. Yes.

And so, like, that whole process of practicing that. And, you know, the hip thrust allows you to actually somewhat isolate your glutes that way. Now you can feel it. You get the feel of it, how to recruit, and now we bring that over to the squat, which we load. Now, a hip thrust, it's way easier to make it a glute movement than other exercises. So this should be, this is definitely going to be in your arsenal. Barbell squats are still great, and so we're deadlifts.

And there's also a technique to all three. You can also mess up the technique on a hip thrust. It's harder, but you can still mess it up. So the technique and how you do the exercises matters a lot. We actually, I know Adam, with one of our. top trainers did a free butt building. That's right. Where you went through exercises. So

just before we get to the rest, it's Mapsbooty.com. You go there and he goes through and teaches the right technique to maximize butt development with some of these exercises. Next up, your intensity and your volume is too high. This is actually quite common. Where you're just doing too much and you're training too hard. Strength training is a balance of sending the signal

and balancing that with your body's ability to recover. and adapt. Yes. You can't be out of balance there. If it's too hard and too long, you overcome your body's ability to recover, heal, and adapt. And so you just end up breaking down constantly. And so you go to the gym, you get sore.

Soreness goes away. Go back to the gym. Workout, get sore. And I keep doing this week over week over week. And I'm not getting stronger. You get nowhere. Even though I'm training my butt off and I'm training hard and I'm throwing the intensity. In fact, I'm going to train even harder now because it's not working.

Oftentimes, you're doing too much. scaling back starts to get the muscles to develop oftentimes. I mean, this is, this reminds me of training a lot. I trained a lot of group X instructors. And they did not lack the discipline or the intensity. I mean, if you've ever been through one of those classes, they're intense. They do a lot of exercising.

Yes, they do a lot of movement, a lot of sweating, a lot of elevated heart rate. So they do not lack the intensity. In fact, what happens a lot of times is that that way of training ends up making its way into traditional strain training. And then traditional strength training stops looking like traditional strength training and starts looking more like group X training

where they have these short rest periods, tons of volume, tons of exercises, lots of movement, very, very short rest periods. And that is just not a clear recipe, especially if you add in any of these other things that we talked about before. So if you're, if this is a thing that you do... And we're not eating enough.

Right, exactly. If you're already... If this resonates with you, you love classes, is you love that kind of short rest periods and doing that. And then in addition to that, you don't need enough calories. Or in addition to that, you also don't connect very well to your glutes. This is the recipe of why you have not been building your butt right here. It's like you've got, you have to get out of that mode of training and less can be more.

I mean, literally focusing on just one or two of these big movements like the hip thruster, squat, or deadlift. And just getting good and strong at that one thing and you did nothing else is going to build those glutes with the other things we're talking about. Totally. And on the other end of the spectrum is your intensity is too low. You're going in, you're going through the movement, you stick to the same weight. You're not challenging yourself. This is oftentimes, this is the client or the woman that's afraid of pushing the weight. Yeah.

She's afraid of struggling under the bar because of either fear of hurting herself or fear of dropping the bar. I don't know. And so the workout kind of looks the same each time. You have to challenge yourself in order to make things change. You have to challenge your muscles in order for them to grow. I also think that this is, to Justin's point earlier, about what a big mover the glutes are, part of the psychological changes is you be surprised how strong your glutes already are. And so a lot of times you load something on your back or even on your hips,

you're about to do hit thrust or get ready to pick something off the ground. And you're like, that is way heavier than anything else I do. That's way heavy than a shoulder plus. Oh, that's hard. That's heavy. Yeah, that must be, I can't do that, but that is one of the biggest, strongest muscles you have in your body. And so I had a lot of clients that would surprise themselves

that they would put a weight on the bar, and they're like, I can't do that. And I'm like, oh, I'm watching the way you move. Yeah, I would add the weight to the ball. They'd be like, I can't do that. Yeah, you can. I just watched what you did five. You just did five with 20 less pounds.

You're going to easily get a couple of these, no problem. And I'll let you know. And a lot of times, they surprise the shit of themselves. because it's a big mover. It's a big muscle. It's very strong and powerful. And once you learn to really connect to it, you'd be surprised how much weight you can move.

So the question is, what does this look like? You know, volume and frequency for most people. Now there's a big difference from person to person. But generally speaking, if you train your glutes and your lower body two or three days a week, each workout three to six sets total, that's about it. That's about it right there. You're resting about two minutes between sets, getting stronger, eating enough. everybody listening right now,

you're going to build your butt. If you do these things, it will build. And again, if you want a master class on technique, it makes a huge difference. Technique makes a huge difference when it comes to strength training. Go to Mapsbooty.com, and it's got Adam on there, teaching you how to maximize each of those incredible exercises.

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 RGBC Superbundle at Mind Pumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin

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