How to Get Striated Glutes
How to Get Striated Glutes
Victor Martinez
First of all, if it wasn’t for Rich Gaspari showing striated glutes for the first time almost 30 years ago, they wouldn’t be a requirement. You knew they weren’t up until then, because the posing trunks were a lot bigger. They were practically diapers compared to the trunks we wear now, that show half your ass! So you can’t hide it if your glutes are soft like the guys back in the old days could.
I used to have theories about why some guys never could get their glutes in. Like Lee Priest. He used to get into crazy condition everywhere but his glutes. I thought it was because he had short legs. But then I saw Jose Raymond come along a few years ago with pretty much the same proportions, and he gets his glutes shredded every time. I think part of it is that some guys who don’t get that look should train their glutes, but they’re too macho to sit there in the gym and do it. It’s not considered very hardcore for a big male bodybuilder to get on a machine like the Butt Blaster that usually only women use. Even the name of the machine is embarrassing! But deep squats and that machine, along with step-ups, lunges and cardio on the StepMill, will develop the glutes and give them that same muscle maturity that helps you get striations in other areas like your pecs and quads.
My glutes have come in really clear a few times, but not every time. It’s tough to stay big and full and hit that super shredded and dry condition you need to have in order to display truly striated glutes. But these days, you have to at least show some blurry striations in your glutes or else your condition is looked at as being off. [Don’t get Peter McGough started on how striated glutes have become so important.] I don’t know if genetically some guys really can’t get striated glutes, or if they’re not willing to do what it takes with training them— really suffering with the diet and doing all the cardio needed.
Dennis Wolf
One thing not everyone understands, because they are only thinking about the condition part of it, is that first you need to have development in the glutes. Some guys have that just from doing things like squats and leg presses, while others like myself find that you need to do direct work on them to make them grow. My glutes were pretty small and underdeveloped, even though I was able to do heavy squats and leg presses and my quads got very big. Eventually I figured out that my glutes weren’t getting much work from those, and I had to do things like that glute kickback machine that usually only women use.
Once you have glute development, then of course you need to get extremely lean and then get the water out at the last minute to see striations, and that’s not an easy thing to do. It’s tricky because you still want to stay as big and full as you can. If you don’t care about losing muscle size and fullness, anyone can get striated glutes, I think. But in bodybuilding, you can’t just be ripped. You need to have size too. Striking that balance isn’t easy. It’s also a timing problem. You can only hold that balance of size and condition for a very short time before the body starts losing one of those qualities.
So far, the best combination I’ve shown was at the Arnold Classic in Madrid that I won after the 2014 Mr. Olympia. I was very happy with my condition Friday night at the Olympia, but not with my fullness. You can’t be flat when you’re going up against Phil and Kai! But for the guys who never have striated glutes, it’s probably either because they don’t have the development there, they never get lean and dry enough, or both.
Juan Morel
I think there are two reasons guys never get striated glutes. First of all, sometimes a muscle group just doesn’t have the genetics, no matter how lean the person gets. You see it with chests a lot. Sometimes a guy will have a pretty big chest, but even when he’s in great condition, you don’t see any cross-striations when he hits his crab shot. Then you see a guy with a chest half that size with splits and grooves like crazy all across his pecs. I think it’s the same with glute striations. But most of the time, the bodybuilder in question just doesn’t get lean enough. They look ripped from the front, but they turn around and they’re soft. That’s because you usually have to get much leaner overall for your glutes and hams to be just as hard as the rest of you. You have to suffer with your diet and your cardio.
Guys will tell you they did everything right and don’t understand why their glutes didn’t come in, but who knows what they really did or didn’t do? Behind closed doors, they might have been bingeing on junk food. They might have been slacking on their cardio, using easier machines like a stationary bike instead of the StepMill. Or if they do use the StepMill, they lean on the thing and hug it once it gets tough.
It takes a lot of very hard work to get shredded to the point where your glutes are in, and most guys won’t go that extra mile it takes. They get to a certain point and just figure that’s it, that’s as lean as they’re going to get for their show. I think it’s a combination of being lazy, and being afraid to lose any more weight. Guys get it in their heads that they are going to compete at some specific bodyweight. Then they might be a month out from the show and they see they’re already at that weight. Instead of pushing harder and getting that extra condition they need, they sort of go into a holding pattern with their diet and their cardio. If you know a lot of guys who compete, you have seen this happen a bunch of times.