These two people follow an almost identical training program, but this person clearly has underdeveloped glutes and overdeveloped hamstrings and quads, while this person has well-developed glutes that match the size of their legs. What makes the one so much more glute-dominant than the other? In this video, I'll give you the three main reasons why the glutes, the biggest muscles in the body, lose their dominance and don't develop properly, then provide you with solutions for each one. At the end, I'll cover the two exercises that science shows are the best to grow your glutes. But first, I want to show you exactly how this asymmetry between the glutes and the leg muscles occur the more we exercise. And to do that, let's look at what happens inside the body of a non-glute-dominant person when they squat. To stand up from a squat, your body has to do two things at once. Extend the knees, which is driven by the quads at the front of the leg, and extend the hips, the glutes as the primary hip muscles dominate this motion with the hamstrings down the leg only assisting. But when the glutes are weak, the hamstrings, the secondary hip muscles, have to pick up the slack and work much harder to extend the hips. This has a side effect at the knee though. Because the hamstrings attach to the back of the knee, they are also knee flexors. So, when they contract too hard, they start bending the knees. This becomes a problem for the quads that are trying to straighten the knees to stand up, creating a sort of tug-of-war between the hamstrings and quads. As a result, both the hamstrings and quads end up working way harder to do the job of standing up out of the squat. This was proven in a 2015 study which found that when the glutes lose their dominance and the hamstrings had to take over, quad contraction increased by 33%. So, this is how a glute weakness causes the hamstrings and quads, the two leg muscles, to overwork and overdevelop relative to the glutes through exercise. Now, before we show you how to grow your glutes, here's a quick science-backed test you can do to find if you're glute- or hamstring-dominant. Lie on your back with both knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Lift one leg and straighten it out in front of you. Using only the leg still on the ground, push through your foot to lift your hips into a bridge position. Hold this position for up to a minute. Pay attention to which muscles are working and then repeat on the other side. If you felt your glutes doing all of the work, they're properly active. But if you felt the contraction mostly in your hamstrings, lower back, or quads, your glutes are weak and underactive. You now have confirmation of what's happening between your glute and leg muscles when you exercise. So, what causes the glutes to lose their dominance and for the hamstrings to take over? The most common cause of glute weakness is tight hip flexors. For most people, this is because of sitting too much. When you sit for hours every day, your hip flexors stay in a shortened position. Over time, they adapt to that length and become tight. This creates a neurological problem that weakens the glutes. Here's how it works. Muscles work in pairs. When one muscle contracts, the opposite muscle is signaled to relax. We see this pair at the elbow with the bicep and tricep. In elbow flexion movements, the bicep shortens while the tricep lengthens. The hip flexors and glutes are another one of these pairs. As the glutes shorten to contract, the hip flexors have to lengthen to allow the hip to extend. This relationship between the muscle pairs is what we call reciprocal inhibition, and it's the natural way that the muscles move the body. But when the hip flexors are chronically tight and are unable to lengthen, it breaks their relationship with the glutes by blocking the glutes from contracting. This is called altered reciprocal inhibition, and it results in weakened glute engagement. A 2024 study tested this directly. They compared women with tight hip flexors to those with normal hip flexibility during squats. They found that those with tight hip flexors showed 60% less glute activation than the participants with mobile hips and 2.6 times more hamstring activity relative to their glutes. So, in short, tight hips block glute function causing the legs to overwork and eventually overdevelop. The second reason the glutes lose their dominance is core weakness and pelvic instability. The body works according to a simple principle. Proximal stability enables distal power. In other words, a stable base allows the body to generate more force. Think of how much faster you're able to run on the road versus sand. The same idea applies to the glutes. They can only fire at max power when they're contracting off a solid base, your pelvis, and it's the job of your core to keep the pelvis steady. When the core is strong, the pelvis stays neutral, the glutes can fire harder, and force transfers smoothly through the hips and spine. But when the core is weak, the pelvis tilts, the glutes lose leverage, and hamstrings have to pick up the slack. Research validates the strong relationship between the core and glutes, showing that the glutes are significantly less active when the core is not engaged. Now, if this powerful connection between the core and glutes surprised you, the final cause of glute weakness is going to surprise you even more. If you have weak glutes, you've got to check your feet. Research clearly shows that foot dysfunction directly reduces glute activation and overactivates the hamstrings instead. Here's why. When the feet overpronate, the ankles about them collapse inwards, which leads the knees to fall into a valgus position, causing an internal rotation at the hip and an anterior pelvic tilt. A tilted pelvis puts the glutes at a mechanically disadvantaged position that makes it harder for them to fire. And as we've said many times, when the glutes aren't able to fire properly, the hamstrings have to take over and become overworked. This was validated in a 2023 study which found a strong correlation between overpronated feet and tight hamstrings. Since the feet are the base that supports the entire body, it should be no surprise that if you're unstable, everything built on top of them will be compromised. So, now that you know why your glutes are not growing in relative proportion to your leg muscles when you exercise, let's talk about the solutions to building more dominant glutes. If tight hip flexors are inhibiting your glutes, the first step is obvious. Restore hip flexor length. One study found that those with mobile hips used their glutes twice as much as their hamstrings when squatting versus those with tight hips whose hamstrings worked harder than their glutes. This study shows that just improving hip mobility can shift you from a hamstring-dominant pattern back to a glute-dominant one. We actually tested this ourselves in our five-day glute transformation experiment where we had five participants do hip flexor stretches for 20 minutes per day. After just five days, we saw an average 17.3% improvement in glute activity during the goblet squat. One participant improved by 38.1%. So, my recommendation is do the same. It doesn't need to be 20 minutes at a time, but a few minutes done every day can go a long way. Make hip mobility part of your warm-up and your morning or evening routines. One of my favorite mobility drills we teach our members in our academy is the kneeling hip extension drill. Hold each stretch for at least 60 seconds per set and focus on bracing your core while you do it so that your pelvis can remain neutral and not tilted forward. Speaking of bracing your core, the next solution for becoming glute-dominant is building core stability. To have big, powerful glutes, you need a strong core. Studies show that adding core stability work to glute exercises increases glute activation by up to 26%. Here's why. The core and glutes are indirectly connected through the pelvis, which is the base that the glutes contract from. The core's role is to stabilize the pelvis, allowing the glutes to activate more effectively. But the core muscles also connect directly to your glutes through fascial tissue. Because of this deep interconnection between the core and glutes, when they contract together, it creates a synergistic effect that amplifies overall muscle activation. The best way to strengthen this connection between the core and glutes is through the belly bracing technique because you can use it in every exercise. What's the point a bunch of core stability work in isolation if when you run, jump, and lift, you're not actively engaging your core? Why do you think the world's best powerlifters belly brace before every lift? You'll see them take a big, deep breath and create maximum tension in their midsection before the bar even moves. Many wear weightlifting belts because it gives them something to brace against so they can engage these muscles even harder to generate maximum force through the hips and maintain good positions throughout their lift. If you want to move safely and get proper glute activation, then bracing should be part of your movement strategy on every rep, not just on max efforts. Here's a simple technique you can use to brace your core before each exercise. Poke your fingers deep into your abdomen, then contract your abs to force your fingers back out. You should now be braced and ready to lift. Just make sure that when you brace, you don't flex or extend your spine. It must remain in neutral. Right, onto the third solution. If you want strong glutes, you need to build strong feet. A 2020 study compared glute activation across different foot types and found that people with higher arches had significantly more glute activity during walking compared to those with flat or neutral feet. The mechanism is straightforward. A stable, well-supported arch is the solid base that helps align the ankles, knees, and pelvis so the glutes can contract from their strongest position. So, how do you build up your foot arches? Here's the three-step protocol we use. If your arches are collapsed, start with arch supporting insoles. A 2005 study found that wearing foot orthotics significantly increased glute activity during single leg squats and lateral step downs compared to no orthotics. The orthotics provide immediate mechanical support giving your glutes a stable base to work from while you build the strength to support yourself. But here's the problem with arch support. If you wear them for too long, your feet will get weaker. A 2020 study found that 12 weeks in arch support reduced intrinsic foot muscle strength by 14.7%. That's counterproductive if you're trying to build arch strength, which is why the long-term solution has to be foot strengthening. A 2024 study compared the effectiveness of arch support on their own versus arch support plus foot strengthening exercises. The group that strengthened their feet while wearing supports showed better results than the group that only used the artificial support. So, this additional step is critical if you want sustainably strong foot arches. I did a video on the four best foot strengthening exercises, which I'll put down below in the description. Finally, you want to use silicone toe spacers to restore natural toe splay and realign the big toe. This widens the foot's base of support and positions the intrinsic foot muscles into the optimal position to contract more powerfully making the arch more stable. And if you think toe alignment couldn't possibly affect glute activation, our own internal EMG testing showed that wearing silicone toe spacers increased glute activity by 7% during the step up exercise. All right. Now, once you've gained enough hip mobility, built up your core stability, and strengthened your foot arches, the final step is to choose exercises that maximize the amount of glute growth you can get out of every training session. A 2020 literature review analyzed glute activation across 24 different exercises. The results showed that step ups produced the highest gluteus maximus activation. There are three reasons why. Because the step up is a single leg exercise, your glutes have to work really hard to help you stand up onto the box while also stabilizing you on one leg. Stepping onto a box forces your hips into deep hip flexion stretching the glutes. And when the muscles are stretched before contracting, they can then generate more force. Finally, to step up onto a box, your knee has to also travel forward past your toes. This shortens the hamstrings across the knee joint reducing their ability to contribute too much to the exercise. With less hamstrings involved, the glutes become the dominant hip extensor. But if you prefer bilateral movements, the front squat beats the back squat and deadlift for glute activation. A 2008 study compared muscle activation in all three movements, a front squat, back squat, and deadlift among 13 trained athletes. The front squat showed 94% glute activation compared to 84% for the back squat and 72% for the deadlift. This is why the mechanics of the front squat naturally favor glute dominance. The front barbell placement creates a longer lever arm at the hips forcing the glutes to produce more torque to counteract the forward load and keep the torso upright. Front squats help you squat deeper, which increases the stretch on the glutes. When the muscles are stretched before contracting, they can generate more force. A deeper squat also increases knee flexion, which shortens the hamstrings and reduces their contribution to the lift shifting more load onto the glutes. Finally, the front rack position forces your knees outward promoting hip abduction and external rotation, both of which increase glute activation. Now that you understand the main reasons why your glutes lose their dominance and why they're not growing, the next step is putting the fixes into action consistently in your daily training. And that's exactly what we built the Barefoot Strength Academy for. Every day you get follow-along workouts that are optimized to target all the weaknesses we mentioned in this video and increase glute activation. Every movement within each workout also comes with a full tutorial so that your technique is dialed in and you're getting the most out of every minute of your training. And if you ever have questions or run into something specific to your situation, you can ask us directly inside the academy. We answer every single question our members have. You'll never feel like you're in the dark when it comes to your training. So, if you want to start building bigger and stronger glutes today, go to bfs.fit or click the first link in the description below and join the academy. See you there. Cheers. >> [music]