Personal trainer Sophie Guidolin 30, shares the five things she did to grow her bum

A personal trainer has revealed the five things she did to increase the size of her bum – and anyone can do them if they’re prepared to eat.`

Sophie Allen, 30, from Sydney, said it takes between six and 12 months to change the composition of your glutes – and getting a ‘booty’ is a combination of the right diet, exercises and recovery.

‘Building muscle takes time – often between four and eight months,’ Sophie wrote on her website.

1. Progressive overload

First things first, Sophie said you need to train in progressive overload.

Progressive overload is a method of strength training that advocates for the gradual increase of the stress placed upon the musculoskeletal and nervous system. 

‘If we hit the muscle we’re focusing on with the same stimulus over and over, it’ll stop being challenged by it and stop growing,’ Sophie said.

Therefore, you need to train each muscle on alternate days and gradually increase the load of either your weights or reps. 

Sophie said she often operates in groups of four week blocks, whereby she does the same workouts each week but increases the reps, weight or both every seven days.

‘If you do this over the course of a month, your muscles will continuously progress,’ she said.

2. Change your nutrition

The second thing the personal trainer said you need to do is eat more in order to slowly and steadily build up your muscle.

‘By slightly increasing our food intake to be above where we maintain, we may see faster results for muscle building’ Sophie said.

The 30-year-old recommends you eat between 100 and 200 calories more than what you would normally eat – but from wholefoods and protein-rich sources.

‘You’ll need to get comfortable with putting on fat – this is part of the deal [with eating more], but you can diet to lose the fat gained after your building phase,’ Sophie said.

She said it’s very difficult to put on muscle if you’re under-eating. 

3. Give it some time

In the same way that it takes some time to lose weight, so too does it take a while to put on muscle.

Sophie said anywhere between four and eight months is a good time frame to be eating in a surplus and doing a building phase – and it can be even longer if you’re not doing everything right.

‘People build muscle at different rates, just like people lose weight at different rates too,’ she said.

But if you’re going to get results, you need to commit to a long-term plan.

4. Choose the right exercises

Sophie said there is no use in doing exercises that aren’t going to target the area you want to grow.

‘You want to be hitting the glutes with a range of exercises (mostly compounds) and working them through all of their functions,’ she said. 

Sophie explained you absolutely have to be doing weight training over cardio for muscle growth. 

She especially likes exercises including glute bridges, walking lunges, deadlifts, hip thrusts and side clams for building up booty strength.

5. Make time for recovery

Finally, the PT said your rest and recovery is just as important as any workout or diet plan. 

‘If there was one common error in every single person’s training program it would be lack of rest and recovery. It’s so under-estimated,’ Sophie said.

In fact, most of our muscle gains occur when we’re sleeping or resting. 

Sophie said to promote the best kind of recovery, you should make sure you get eight hours of sleep per night, supplement with magnesium and enjoy some low intensity walks.

You should also factor in baths and saunas to your routine, drink lots of water and always stretch and work on your overall mobility.  

To find out more about Sophie Allen, you can visit her Instagram profile here.