Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2937: The Best Workout Program To Grow Your Butt & Reveal Your Abs

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

MAPS Abs & Butt: ⁠https://mapsabsandbutt.com⁠   Abs and glutes. The two most requested body parts, the two most commonly undertrained. In this episode, Sal, Adam, and Justin break down the brand new MAPS Abs and Butt program and talk about WHY so many people fail to develop these areas, even when they're putting in the work. The answer isn't what most people think, and the guys are blunt about it.   If you've been frustrated by a flat butt or abs that won't show no matter how hard you train, this is the episode that explains exactly why, and what to do about it.   00:00 Intro 00:22 MAPS Abs and Butt program intro and launch offer 01:17 Sponsor: Crisp Power 02:26 Why the hosts built this program 03:22 Evolutionary roots of abs and glute appeal 07:36 Why abs and glutes are so hard to develop 08:41 Full body programming with targeted volume emphasis 09:16 Cross-education science: why training the whole body helps target areas 14:16 Mind-muscle connection and why phases run inverse 15:51 Real example: ab exercises becoming hip flexor exercises 17:49 Program structure: phases, sets, reps, and intensity 19:57 Mistake 3: Not eating in a calorie surplus 21:56 Bonus guides, launch offer details, and free programs   Sponsors: Crisp Power: ⁠https://crisppower.com/mindpump⁠ (code: mind pump)   Mentioned: Brett Contreras - Described as one of the best in the business regarding workout programming, referenced during the discussion about total body volume limits.

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 health, fitness, and entertainment podcast in history. This is Mind Pump. All right, you're ready? We got a brand new Maps program. Maps, abs, and butt.

Now, you do train the whole body, but the focus, most of the training volume, It's on developing an incredible core and great glutes. That's what this program is all about. And by the way, if you go to Maps, abs and butt.com and use the code launch, you get it for 40% off. Plus, we'll give you for free Muscle Mommy 15 or Muscle Mommy. So you get an additional Maps program, Muscle Mommy 15 or Muscle Mommy, for free. And there's more.

We will also give you for free the butt building diet guide and the women's supplement guide. By the way, this program, Maps, Ads and But has a at-gim version and an at-home dumbbell-only version. So if you just have dumbbells, you can follow this program. If you have a well-equipped home gym with barbells, you can also follow this program. So one more time, it's MapsAbs&But.com. The code is launch for the 40% off and all that free stuff. Now, this episode is brought to by Crisp Power. So these are high-protein pretzel snacks.

They're delicious. They're crunchy. they taste really, really good. Here's the best part. Ready for this? Your bag of Chris Power will have around 190 calories for the whole bag. Around 190 calories. 28 grams of protein.

Try that with a bag of potato chips. You can't. They have no protein. 28 grams of protein. You ready? It gets even better. 10 grams of fiber. High protein, high fiber.

Now, why is that a good thing? Protein and fiber produced the most satiety. So you're eating this delicious snack. Chris Power, but it's got so much protein, so much fiber that one bag satisfies you. You don't feel like you need to eat 15 bags. You feel satisfied. Plus, you get the protein and the fiber, which are both good for you. Both of them help with muscle building and fat loss.

Look at the data. It's protein and fiber that make the biggest difference. So if you want to try it out, you want a snack, you want to get protein, you want to get fiber, you want to be satisfied. Go to crisppower.com.com slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump. Get 10% off. All right.

Real quick. If you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at Mindpumpstore.com. I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to Mindpstor.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show.

All right. It's here by popular demand. You asked for it. So we made it. Let's go. Maps, abs and butt. Brand new program. It focuses on, you guessed it.

Abs and butt. Let's talk about it. It's a banger. You know you want it. You know you want it. You know, I want to start with some, first off, one of the reasons why we made this program is because those are the two, by far, most popular areas that people request training programs to focus on. Yeah.

Abs and butt. It's usually women, especially when you include butt. Sure. I want to work on these areas. Do you have a program that focused on these areas? Now, every other program that we have, almost every program that we have, is basically a balanced full body program. Maybe a little more emphasis here or there or emphasis on things like athletic performance, mobility, or strength or whatever, bodybuilding, let's say. This is one of the first programs where the focus is on kind of two areas of the body that people consistently request.

And what I think is very interesting. We can start with this is why are the abs and glutes so desirable? Why is it that people tend to want to develop those two areas? And there's actually some good reasons. Signal of health. It's 100%. It's not something people will say, oh, it's society or media. there are evolutionary roots to those two areas.

And we'll start with abs or core. Really strong core muscles or well-developed core muscles tends to signal good mobility and strength, and especially the most important area, which is the lumbel pelvic hip area. And so this is why a lot of people find this an area that's alluring, is that when you have well-developed abs, it says a lot more than just the fact that you can see the muscles of the core.

Well, it also, it signals health and longevity, too, right? I mean, your waistline, somebody who is typically really overweight and unhealthy, one of the most common areas that almost everybody carries a big portion of that weight is in your gut. It's very visible. Your stomach, yeah. So it's very visible. And so somebody who has, and if you have abs, that means you definitely have a small waistline, right? So it's like you're not, you're not going to have abs and have this big, big giant waistline. You're going to have a tapered waistline.

if you have abs. And so it signals that you're very healthy and probably have your diet and check and take care of yourself. That's right. In a weak core, just from a function perspective, you can have very strong legs. You can have really strong upper body.

But if your core is lacking, your injury risk goes to the roof, especially with your lower back, which is the number one area that people tend to injure. So the reason why it's so attractive, both in men and women, is because it signals something that means a lot. This is also true for the,

the glutes, by the way. So the glutes, by the way, when, now I know most women say they want to build their butt, and a lot of guys don't think about it so much, but when you look at poles on body parts that women find attractive, the glutes are actually up there, not number one, but they're actually up there. And what's funny is when you look at sports, athletics, especially sports that involve a lot of running and sprinting, you can typically tell when an athlete has a lot of power and speed by the glutes. Yeah. It's the hips. They make you strong. It's a powerful right away. And I think it's an unintentional byproducts of just training heavy and like getting strong. You know, your glutes are going to have to, you know, support all this muscle

and keep you upright and give you that explosive power. And, you know, if you're working on all these things and being athletically minded or just like overall body mass and size, like you're going to have big glutes to support it. There's, uh, you mean, so much power and strength is just, generated from the hips and the glutes. As you're sitting here, you guys are talking about, I'm trying to think of an example of anyone I've ever met that has strong, powerful glutes and hips and was weak in the other areas. No, no.

Like you just anybody, I mean, every fighter, boxer, athletes. Football player, baseball player, just generally strong dude even that I've ever met, typically has powerful hips. It's your base, it's your foundation. and you generate so much force and power from there that it's almost, has this almost direct correlation always to strong everywhere else. It's usually just like the gym bros that don't work their legs.

Yeah. They got the big upper body and then they're kind of chicken legs. But yeah, it's definitely comes with the entire focus. It's funny too because it's one of the more unique areas of muscle on the human body and compared to other, in comparison to primates. So our huge glutes. in comparison to like chimps and apes, for example, it's very distinct.

And part of the reason is we walk on two legs. And so it holds us upright. So again, the reason why powerful glutes or strong glutes or tight glutes or round glutes are attractive both to men and to women is because they signify health and mobility. So just kind of explaining what it is about those two areas. It's not because we're advertised that. It's actually there's more roots to that than just the fact that, you know, social media shows you. Now, that being said, it is also seems to be one of the more challenging areas for people.

I mean, shoot, the abs, you're more likely to become a millionaire than you are to have a a difficult journey, which I've always thought was such an interesting statistic. I would also argue that probably the, if I had to like distill down to what was the number one requested body part developed by all my clients, probably but was number one. And I think, I mean, 60% of our clientele were female and that's probably not. 90% of them wanted. Number one goal. Yeah.

That as a goal. And so, yeah, this is an area that this is also why when you look at like all of our mind pump TV videos that abs and glutes are always the top performing videos is because so many people are searching and trying to figure this out. And it seems, I mean, from a trainer perspective, because we've been doing this long, like a simple answer. But I don't think it's very simple for a lot of people to do. develop both areas. No, there's a lot of mistakes made in training both areas. Now, I do want to be

clear before we go on, Maps, Abs and Butt is not just abs and butt. So you don't buy this program and all you work out is your abs and butt. It is a full body program, but 90% of the volume is on Ab's and But heavily emphasized. So you're still training the rest of the body. Now, why? Why would we have you train the rest of the body? Well, there's a couple reasons. One, training the rest of the body actually helps develop target body parts. That's number one. So number one, just focusing on one body part will actually make it grow less than if there's actual balance. The body has a little bit of a checks and balances. And there's this really interesting studies, some of my favorite ones to point to where they will immobilize a limb. So they'll take somebody and put them in a leg

cast on the right leg. And then they'll take a group of people and they'll have them do nothing. They'll take another group of people and have them exercise the leg that is mobile. So my right leg's in a cast and I work out my left leg. And then there's other people who do nothing. The group that works out the left leg loses less muscle in the immobilized leg. So the body has this kind of checks and balances. So number one, you'll actually build your abs and butt better if you train the rest of the body as well. But number two, most of the volume needs to be done on the areas that you want to target. You can't just pile volume on top of volume. In other words, you can't do 15 sets for every body part and then on top of it add another 15 sets to abs and butt and expect.

Yeah, you can't expect to build your abs and butt. Your body can only handle so much volume. So if the target and the goal is abs and butt. Most of the training volume, most of the exercises and the sets and reps will go there, but you're still doing a, you know, a tricep exercise, a bicep exercise. You're still doing something for your shoulders and your chest. Minimally, so it's minimal in this program because the focus is abs and butt, but you're not neglecting other parts of the body. And the other reason why is we're trainers and coaches. And I would never train somebody this way. I don't care what a client came to me with. I would never create a terrible imbalance in somebody just for the sake of developing the body part they wanted. Do you guys,

If you guys had to rank like the number one reason, or we had to rank what are the top five reasons that people struggle to build a butt and build abs, do you think that this is the number one, which is, because you just kind of glossed over what I think is such an important point when designing a program. And we just recently had a good friend of ours

on the show who's a great trainer and, you know, was talking about programming. Oh, Brett Kutra's? Yeah. And as he was laying out the way he programming, It's like, you know, and he just kind of glossed over it. I'm like, you have to highlight what you just said right there and did because I think this is the part that people just miss, which is this idea that I have an area I want to

focus on. And so I've been working out of the gym. Let's say everybody goes to gym when they get started and they have, maybe they goo the workout or their friend gave it to them or they're following some program. And then as they're going along, they're getting momentum. Now they start to get like, okay, now I really want to focus on this or I really want to focus on that, glutes and abs being the two most popular. And then they just add more stuff for those things.

Without taking away from... Without taking away or changing any of the programming. And I think that's probably... I mean, this is an area I know I definitely made a mistake. I know that as a young man who was lifting and trying to figure it out, I had my routine. And then when I had areas that I want to focus on, I just did more of that shit on top of all the other shit I was doing. And then it was frustrated why, why is my body not changing or why am I not getting these results because I'm putting all this work in.

Well, there's two things. So you're, I mean, 100%. I made that same exact mistake. And good coaches know this. Good workout programmers know this and design accordingly. Brett, one of the best of the business. He talks about this as well. So your body, each body part can handle so much volume, right?

So your quads or your, okay, let's talk about abs and butt. Your butt, your glutes or your abs can only handle so much training volume. That's true. But your total body can also only handle so much. volume. So once you surpass or reach the limit on the total volume your body can handle, you can add all the volume you want on your glutes and all you're going to do is overtrained. All you're going to do is prevent your glutes from growing or prevent your abs from developing because it's just too much total exercise volume. So what you need to do is adjust the volume.

Now, very minimal volume is required to start to get a body part to develop or at the very least maintain a body part. Very little is required. To build a body part when we take away from others, now we can start stacking on top and accelerating the gains. So if you do this right, just like with our program, maps, abs and butt, here's what will happen to you. The rest of your body, the other parts your body are going to be okay, but your

abs and butt are going to accelerate in development. So these two areas, if it's a focus of yours because of the way the volume is spread out and focused primarily on these two body parts, but not add it on top of an already full program, what you're going to see is accelerated progress, faster results. It prioritizes, but it's still balanced.

That's right. Because, too, that is a big common mistake as well is the entire emphasis and focus is just abs and glutes training only exclusively that's the other issue so it's like you know to be able to still incorporate some bit of a total body because you want your entire body to get stronger because you signaling that your body needs this environment needs to be stronger in this environment now we need to build muscle for that and then on top of that we prioritize which muscle groups are getting you know stressed a bit more and so you know to be able to do that and then line it up and have you know you you know, at the beginning of the workout and have to emphasize, it definitely matters.

One of the other things that we did in this program that I really like that's unique to it is that's common when you're trying to help somebody who's trying to build glutes or build abs is one of the challenges that I've found with a lot of my clients, and I think you guys are the same way is being able to connect, right, and feel those areas. Yes. And so typically, a lot of maps programs, we tend to start the program in this like heavy strength phase, like Maps and a point. our foundational program is started that way. And this program is written kind of inverse. And I know at one point we'll get questions asked. Like, why did you guys do that?

Why are you starting at this way? Why would you start this way? And when I have a client who is having trouble connecting to their abs or connecting to their glutes, one of the things I want to do before I load really heavy on that person is to get that practice and work on that mind muscle connection and really be able to feel the abs, really be able to feel the glutes before we start to load it later on the program. And that's one of the reasons why we did that, which I think.

is one of the best things that we did in this program and also something that I learned over years of training clients that I wouldn't have done before. Yeah, so higher reps, you can really focus on feeling the muscle. Heavy lower reps, you tend to want to perfect the technique. You want to feel the exercise, but not necessarily the body part.

In fact, if you go really heavy and try to feel a muscle, you can often hurt yourself. You're not trying to, you're just trying to go heavy. So that's why it makes sense to start to try to connect first and feel it because especially with those two body parts.

So if you're listening right now and you have issues with developing your core muscles or you really want to develop them and it's not developing the way it wants or your glutes, one of the issues might be just that you're not connecting well. Yeah, you know, like so many butt exercises can very easily become quad exercises. And so many ab exercises can very easily become hip flexor exercise. I saw this the other day. I was at the gym working out. Young ladies working out.

And she was doing leg raises. She was doing ab rollouts. she was doing all these different exercises and I can see what she's doing and it's all hip flexer. Everything she's doing is all hip flexer. Now she's going to feel in her abs because the abs are supporting

and I was so close to going up to her but I'm not, I don't work at that gym and I don't want to interrupt anybody but I'm looking at I'm like man that is all hip flexer. If she just changed her technique she would suddenly feel this in a completely different ways.

I mean this is the value in a coach and personal trainer but like it's it's you know if you're watching a video or if you're just following a random program like you're going to try your best to emulate that. But to be able to feel it, like you understand the movement and you're going to do the movement.

But now to really pay attention to the recruiting of the muscles that you want involved, slow down, you know, make sure your body's in the right positioning, your mechanics are correct, and all of that. Now you're going to emphasize those muscle groups. You're going to get a lot more out of them in the recruitment of it. 100%. This is why I asked you guys earlier if you thought that the other way was,

what was the most challenging thing for people. Like, why do people, are they not successful? Is it just because they pile on volume? Yeah, that's one of them for sure. Or is it this one? Because I feel like this is one and two for me. They're both. When I think back of all the people that were challenged in this area, it was either

one, you just piled on all these exercises to already a ton of volume in a program and you weren't doing that. Or this one, I would say, would be there. There's one other one. There's one other that we're going to get to. Yeah. That I'm thinking of are like the top three. I was just going to say.

So I'm so curious how you guys. order these of like, what is it? You know? So, yeah, no, we'll get there because there is a third one. And if you hang in here for the next five minutes, we're going to get to it. Because I think the three issues, the two that you mentioned, the one we're about to mention, we'll mention a bit. Those are definitely big.

Yeah, these are the three, those are the three issues why people have difficult, difficult to train these areas. But back to the program, I also want to say this. It's a four day a week workout program. So you're in the gym four days a week. One of those days a week, regardless of the phase, now we'll get into the phases and why they're different. But regardless of the phase, one of those days a week is a heavier workout and the other day a week is more moderate.

And so the exercises themselves are a bit different. There are exercises that lend themselves better to going heavy and exercises that lend themselves to going a little lighter. Both very effective, but when they're combined, you get the proper amount of intensity and volumes. Someone might be wondering, why don't I just go heavy two days a week or just go moderate two days a week? Because you can overwhelm your body with too much stress. When you combine them in this way, you get the perfect. amount of stress. You can add the frequency twice a week. The total volume is very high. You recover and adapt. And this is what makes you build. This is what builds the muscle. That's the

sweet spot is when you're recovering. So to allow that process or really emphasize that process, you're going to get to your results a lot sooner. Totally. Now, the program also has three phases. Okay. So each phase is a few weeks long. And each phase is a little bit different. So phase one, you have less sets per exercises, higher reps. Now remember, we're controlling the volumes. A lot of people don't realize this, but when they think of volume, they just think of sets.

But really, volume is sets times reps, times the weight. Okay, so if I do less sets, but I'm going with heavier weight, then that total volume can equate to what I did before with the lighter weight and higher reps. So sometimes people make a mistake with this.

They think, well, I'm still doing the same amount of sets, but their volume went up because the reps are much higher or something like that. Okay. So phase one, less sets, higher reps. You're looking about 12 on average. Then phase two, the sets get a little bit lower, but they're, sorry, get a little bit lower. And the reps get a little bit lower. And then that happens again in phase three.

Phase three, the sets are the highest, but the reps are the lowest. In phase three, you're getting to five reps. So it goes from 12 to about eight to about five reps per exercise. The sets go up as the reps go down. and the weight goes up. Obviously, if I'm going to do five reps and we lift a lot more. That's right. All right.

Here's number three. This is the third reason why somebody has trouble building their butt and their abs or any body part, but especially these two and typically, especially when we're talking about our female client. They don't want to eat in a calorie surplus. That's right. Like Justin says, feed that butt, girl. It's hungry. Listen, you can have the most perfect workout routine, like perfect program.

written by the best coach, individualized to you. You could take the best supplements. You could get great sleep. You do everything perfect. But if you're not feeding yourself enough, you won't build muscle. I don't even care if you take steroids. You will not build muscle if you're not intaking enough calories. And I need to communicate this.

If you want to develop muscles in your core so that when you get leaner, they look more visible because my abs are bigger. My obliques are more developed. If you're your butt to get more round and full, you have to eat in a surplus. Now, if somebody's listening and saying, well, I want to also lean out, you can cut on any strength training program, but ideally what you do is you do in a surplus first, then you cut after. We want to build the muscle and then reveal the muscle. We don't want to reveal less muscle and then try to build later. That's backwards.

So eat in a surplus. These are the three. These, and more often than not, it's one or two of these that when I get a client that's stroke. Oftentimes it's all three. Right. Or all three. But all it takes is one of these three to completely stall progress. So if you're not seeing results, you're not growing your butt, you're not seeing your abs. All it takes is one of these three to be off. And that might be the case. And a lot of times, like you said, it could be multiple problems. But these for sure are the three. These are the three big. And now to address, obviously, the connection we've addressed that. When you watch the videos in the program, we're teaching you how to do it perfectly. So you can really feel. develop the muscles. The programming is taking care of. You got the exercise of the sets and reps. That's all good. We just mentioned diet. Now, the program is not a diet program. It's a workout program. But here's what we did. When you get this program, maps, abs and butt, we included a

butt building diet guide. We wanted a diet portion because sometimes people like, okay, what does that look like? What does a calorie surplus look like? How do I eat to build? Do I just eat a bunch of food? Am I eating too much? So we're including for free a butt building diet guide. We also included a women's supplement guide. The only reason why we did that is people always ask us questions about supplements. Which ones are best for me? Which ones are a waste of time? We included that as well.

And then what we also did with this program is we gave you basically two ways to do this. One, gym access. You have access to barbells, dumbbells, you know, basic equipment, you'd find a gym. Or if you have a well-equipped home gym. But we also added a version where you just need dumbbells. So some people want to work out and they don't even have barbells. They don't have a squat rack. but they have dumbbells,

you can follow the full program with just dumbbells as well. And then one last thing, we know that it's going to be a lot of women that buy this program because women tend to be the ones that say I want to work on abs and butt. So here's what we're also doing.

If you get this program during the launch, you get your choice to be included for free. We can include either Muscle Mommy 15 or Muscle Mommy. Those are two of the most popular maps programs that we have. It's another program. But you can pick one of those. You can pick one of those and it's totally free. So if you're interested in this program and you want to get a lot of free stuff,

you go to Mapsabs andbutt.com and then use the code launch. That'll get you 40% off the retail price and it'll get you all that free stuff. Also, if you like this show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump media. 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 discount. at RGB 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 to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources

at Mindpumpmedia.com. 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.