How To Grow (and maintain) a Heart Shaped Booty.
The Heart Shaped Booty - Sometimes called ‘A’ Shaped Glutes….
Easily THE most desirable butt shape there is. Wide and thick at the base, tapering up into a small, svelt waist line.
Coveted by women across the world and made famous by the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce and Kim Kardashian……
Although the Kim K butt needs to die because it’s a surgically enhanced mess and not a natural, athletic pair of glutes like J-Lo or Queen B.
If you are reading this then chances are you may have a heart shaped bum.
Congrats you hit the booty genetic lottery….. almost (keep reading and I’ll explain)
If not and a heart shaped butt is something you want, then I’ve got a little bit of bad news for you.
We are all born with different glute genetics that will largely control what glute shape you have.
I strongly suggest you check out my insanely popular post on How Your Genetics Shapes Your Glutes after you read this.
Before we go on let’s get one thing clear - ALL BUMS ARE GREAT!
Whatever shape you may fall into doesn’t matter. It doesn’t define you, make you any less sexy and awesome or any less capable.
Any shaped butt is capable of looking great and more importantly being the powerhouse for your whole body.
You can’t really change what nature gave you, but we can fine tune it into something you are happier with.
What Characterises Heart Shaped Glutes?
The heart/pear/A shape is generally considered to be the most feminine and desirable bum shape by both women and men, perhaps due to our instinctual attraction to so-called "‘child bearing’ hips.
Women with a heart shaped bum have a higher fat distribution around the lower portion of the bum and thighs and less fat around the waist.
This results in the glutes appearing wider at the base of your bum and tapering up into a comparatively narrower waist (hence “A” shape or ‘heart shape’ just upside down).
While every person’s body is uniquely beautiful, many women with heart shaped glutes still want to improve.
As they should; Even if you have the ‘ideal’ booty (ideal does not exist) , you still need to keep it functional, strong and active so you don’t lose it and start picking up injuries.
Do You Still Need To Build A Heart Shaped Bum?
Yes! 100%
It may be the most desirable and sought after but it’s also easy to lose it as you age.
Yep….you can loose that heart-shaped bum if you don’t do the work and it could end up saggy.
“Why” you ask?
The answer is simple - Hormones and ageing.
As women age, their hormones change, particularly oestrogen. This change causes a gradual shift in where your body holds fat. Typically fat storage will move away from the glutes, legs and hips and migrate up to the midsection.
So over time, the fat that gives you your heart-shaped butt may shift to your belly, and you end up at the other end of the spectrum with a V-Shaped booty. Luckily I’ve already got you covered on that in another article.
So to keep that butt nice and peachy, we need to train it hard and often, and we need to feed it.
Hey, while you’re here, go follow my Instagram below.
Glute Building Nutrition
Nutrition is ALWAYS your first stop on the glute building train. No one ever built an ass if they didn’t eat properly. I see it time and time again, girls trying to grow their glutes on 1200-1500 calories and doing HIIT 5x a week.
That won’t get you anywhere.
We need calories and protein to build those glute muscles, so to keep your heart shaped glutes nice and round we need to eat.
I go into much more detail on glute building nutrition in this article, check it out after when you are done.
I’ve got a brilliant and handy CALORIE CALCULATOR on my website that will give you custom calorie targets, advice on macro splits and advice on either building muscle or burning fat, make sure you check it out.
Your Primary Goal
For a heart shaped bum I would typically recommend a small calorie surplus or staying at maintenance with a high protein diet in order to build your glutes
(you can get this from the calculator).
A calorie surplus would be ideal for those who are naturally leaner/don’t hold much fat on their waist but struggle to add much muscle.
Calorie maintenance would be beneficial for those who are looking for body recomposition or those who gain fat easily and or already have naturally large glutes they just want to maintain.
But this is just a guide, everyone is different and will need a unique approach.
I recommend training your glutes 3-4x a week consistently to maintain of grow heart shaped glutes. But in all honesty a great bum can take years of consistent work and effort and you heart shaped winners out there should just keep training glutes forever.
But remember if you don’t eat you won’t grow, you won’t maintain size.
I wouldn’t focus heavily on fat loss at this time. Losing weight will just shrink your booty, so you need to make sure you’ve build the mass on that ass first so that when the fat does go - you keep your heart shape.
So Lift weights - Keep it heavy - Increase your strength levels. This is called progressive overload and I suggest you read this article next to learn what overload is and why it’s essential for growth.
Ok….Let’s get on to why you are really here: The Exercises
Exercises For Heart / A Shaped Glutes
To grow your glutes, you should train all the glute muscle from all angles.
Heart shaped butts are often not lacking in gluteus maximus size so in order to round your glutes more we want more focus more on the gluteus medius (the upper/side of the glutes) and hamstrings.
However your Go To lifts will always be your priority, no matter what you want your glutes to look like these are your bread and butter:
Hip Thrusts - Barbell, banded, foot elevated, machine, single leg.
Glute Bridges - Barbell, banded, single leg.
Deadlifts - Sumo,Conventional, Romanian.
Squats - Back, Front, Sumo, Goblet, Split. - Check out my article on why you can’t squat with good depth and how to fix it
Lunges - Static, Deficit, Walking.
Abductions - Machine, Fire hydrants, Cable, German etc.
Focusing your training on these key movements will build and maintain those all important Glute Max muscles and help you get that heart shape.
But what if we want to round it out a bit and go for that juicy, round bubble butt?
That’s where training the glute medius comes in.
Exercises for the Upper Glutes and Glute Medius
A strong gluteus medius sculpts, lifts, and provides protection from chronic back pain. Therefore, exercises that build them are very important for everyday health and pain-free living, not just a round or heart-shaped bum.
The gluteus medius runs along the side of your glutes and outer thigh (see image above) and can be difficult to target with squats and deadlifts.
Check out this post that will teach you everything you need to know about glute muscles.
To help round out a heart-shaped bum we want to isolate the gluteus medius.
Here are some of my favourite upper glute exercises I use with my clients;
Cable Abductions
Great as an activation exercise, finisher or superset with something like squats. They may look simple but they will burn your glutes like crazy and are fantastic. Don’t let the gym bros tell you otherwise.
Side Lying Hip Raises - aka Side Plank Clams
Good Lord these are tough! Even at bodyweight I challenge anyone to not feel an intense glute burn with these. They are a staple of my glute workouts and I rate them very highly. An alternative would be fire-hydrants, cable abductions and of course the -
Hip Abduction Machine
Any gym bro who hates this machine has never used it properly or enough. It gets a lot of flack, but I reckon it’s great and effective when used properly and when you try advanced techniques like pause reps, drop sets and cluster sets.
Exercises for the Glutes and Hamstrings
Next, let’s look at some fantastic exercises to hit the hamstrings and glutes. The muscle of the back of your body makes up what we call the Posterior Chain. A strong posterior chain will make you an unstoppable machine capable of anything.
One of your best exercises is the RDL -
Romanian Dead Lift
The RDL is a fantastic hamstring and glute developer, it also builds a strong lower back. Just make sure you do it correctly! Ask for help from a qualified coach if needed, as I see these being done poorly daily in the gym. Another alternative is the Good Morning. These should be a staple for building a heart-shaped butt.
Glute Dominant Back Extension
One of my favourite exercises to target the glutes and hamstrings is the Glute Dominant Back Extension. Hitting the hamstrings will help you lift and shape the lower glutes while this move also hits the gluteus medius and, of course, the all-important glute max.
You can take these up a level and try single-leg versions or go hard as fuck and try a Nordic Hamstring Curl.
We can’t talk about glutes and hamstrings without the King or Queen of exercises:
The Sumo Deadlift
The Sumo deadlift and conventional deadlift are challenging and effective total body strengthening exercises. It’s true it uses the quads more than anything, but it really taxes both the hamstrings and glutes - these absolutely ruin my hamstrings (in a good way) 😂.
This is a staple of many of my client’s plans, and I highly recommend you get good at these along with squats and the ALL IMPORTANT Hip Thrusts.
Final Thoughts…..
This is not an exhaustive list of exercises, but they are fantastic options to add to your glute workouts if you have heart-shaped glutes and are looking to improve the size and shape and avoid sagging/losing size with age.
But remember, you can’t change your glutes completely. Your genetics gave you your glute shape; all we can do is try to enhance what you already have and learn to love what you got.
As I say in all my glute articles, glutes greatly impact performance and injury prevention. So if you are prone to injuries training your glutes is an absolute must.
Just because nature gave you those desirable heart-shaped glutes doesn’t mean you can sit around and just enjoy them. You have to put in the work to keep them.
Thanks for reading
Aaron
If you are looking to make that change, work with a coach who understands and respects individuality and is trained to work with women, then you should
apply for ONLINE COACHING HERE
And Check out a few of my client’s glutes below
Hi, I’m Aaron Schiavone, owner of Mind Muscle Personal Training. Over the past 6 years I have helped women increase their self confidence, improve their relationship with food, improve their health, become stronger, fitter and happier.