In the world of bodybuilding, solid glute development is a must. Unfortunately, a lot of us (myself included) were gifted with the worst glute genetics of all time and even after countless squats and lunges, our glutes remain flat as a pancake. I have personally tried numerous different exercises, rep and set schemes, you name it, to try and build my subpar glutes. After time I realized my glute gains (or lack thereof) had nothing do to with my exercise choices or my workout design — it had everything to do with my technique.

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Intentional glute activation, or the mind-muscle connection, was the part that was missing, and it was the most important part. The connection typically cannot be achieved unless you are aware of how to properly engage your glutes by proper movement within your pelvis. Within this article (the first of a multi-article series) I am going to discuss the specific posterior pelvic tilt technique that everyone must be able to do to engage their glutes effectively.

Picture note: This back pose was from my second figure competition in 2012. I wasn’t kidding when I said I am one of the many with the worst glute genetics of all time. During this time I was do all the glute based exercises in the book, and still not seeing the results I wanted.

Now, I am far from having an Amanda Latona booty but I have definitely come a long way. For years and years I remained booty-less until I watched a deadlift lockout video by JL Holdsworth and it all clicked. I was initially checking out this video to help with my deadlift, and when I tried it on my next lower body session, my glutes were absolutely wrecked the next day. I never had sore glutes in my life. Literally…never. I didn’t even know what having sore glutes felt like. I am not saying being sore is a direct correlation to muscle growth, but never being sore in that area was definitely saying something was off. I am a very quad-dominant person to begin with, but even with deadlifts, I felt like my glutes and hamstrings were always asleep. Learning how to posteriorly tilt my pelvis during glute movements was a total game changer for my glute development and my deadlift.

Picture note: This picture is a four-year difference. Yes, four years. Note that I learned how to perform a pelvic tilt probably half way between these pictures. If I would have learned it sooner I am sure the difference would be even more drastic. If JL reads this article, he is definitely going to take 100% credit for my glute gains. But I take credit for his awesome deadlifts at WPC Worlds for putting his socks on….so I guess we’re even.

For the sake of this article, I included my own video explaining the pelvic tilt in regards to building glute size, but all points remain true and similar to JL’s original video. In the video we demonstrate how to properly engage the glutes during an RDL, and how we typically see people do them (which is incorrect.)

Like I stated in the video, you can be incorporating all the “right” exercises to target your glutes, but if you aren’t actually engaging that area then you are doing yourself a disservice. Look out for part two of this series, in which I will discuss how to structure your lower body days with a glute-building emphasis and what exercises to specifically include in your workouts.