Quad Dominance- and How to Train Around It

Pesky when you're trying to grow a booty, Quad Dominance is really just muscle compensations for weak points in other areas.

Every single squat I've ever done- I felt in my quads. Every Lunge- quads. A lot of lower body movements that were meant to engage glutes, I never, ever felt in my glutes. For years I didn't understand why and thought that was just my body composition. And while genetics definitely play a role here- they aren't the defining rule that your quads follow. More often than not, muscular dominance is due to unbalanced muscular strengths and weaknesses in muscle groups that are meant to work in tandem.

Genetics for me: narrow hips and long femurs, which means my glutes have never been my strongest asset. But that doesn't mean that I just roll over and decide that having thighs Thor would appreciate is all I got going for me. (it's definitely not a negative either, just to be clear, I love my thicc thighs)

Especially after multiple pregnancies- I had the notorious Mom Ass- square, wide, and flat as a pancake. I even joked and called them my "pancheeks" for a while, because all the squats in the world did nothing for my glute engagement or growth. My legs looked phenomenal! My backside, left me frowning and hating leggings.

So What's the Solution to Quad Dominance?

First, we have to understand how the glutes interact with other muscles in the body and source the root weaknesses. Yes, plural, because this is never as simple as one problem, it's many that are all dysfunctioning together. Like a family reunion.

Let me first lay out a truth: weak glutes, translates to weaker core.

Your core and glutes operate a lot like door latch. Your pelvis is the door. The glutes are the hinge, and the core is the latch. That sounds weird, but hang on. Our spines are super mobile, without our muscles controlling our spine, it would move willy-nilly all over the place. My hypermobile baddies are probably familiar with lumbar hypermobility- aka anterior pelvic tilt- meaning that your low core is soft (a little too soft). So instead of supporting your heavy pelvis (the largest bones in the body), it angles forward, pushing your ass out and putting a deep curve in the low spine. Due to your low core not holding the stable neutral position of the pelvis, the gluteus muscles are unable to engage properly. Which then puts the pressure of stability in two places it shouldn't be: your quads, and your upper back.

My Lats, My Back, My Core & My Ass...

If you sang that a la 90's Hit, you're cool af in my books.

We gotta start hitting some very specific back work. We gotta start pulling more than pushing. We gotta engage our low core A LOT, like every single damn day. We're doing glute focused moves constantly- while we ignore our quads and work on keeping neutral hips like our lives depend on it.

And truthfully, our lives are very dependent on making some of these changes because 70 year old you will be so fucking grateful that 20-30 something you decided to grow a booty and work on these muscle compensations on the way.

So the work. Here's what we gotta do.

I'm about to sound crazy, because I'm going to tell you that leg day is about to be every day. Core work is our daily warm up, but don't worry you'll be sweaty and feeling it. Back Day is every other day because spinal injuries are a real thing and throwing your weak back out is not on my bingo card this year or ever.

We warm up with core work. Every day.

• Windshield wiper knees 1 min

• 90/90s 1 min

• Breath Work 1 min

• Dead Bugs x15

• Toe Taps x15

• Leg Lifts x15

• Plank Rainbows x15

• Table top Hip cars 1 min each side

• Sit ups to failure

• Standing Marches 1 minute

• Spinal Twist 30 seconds each side

Now you should be warmed up and feeling your core a bit.

Doing this daily will act like a reminder for your core that it has a very functional job it's supposed to be doing all the time, not just during workouts. I don 't start my day without doing this first. As a HyperMobile Baddie myself, as well as a woman who has birthed children, my anterior pelvic tilt is pretty severe. If I don't do this warm up, my low back is hurting by the end of the day because I didn't remind those muscles of their work day. Should I have to? No, but it's the reality of being hypermobile- there's more physical work to be done to hold me together and upright properly.

Glute Work: Use weights that you are comfortable moving with, but that still challenge you at rep 5.

• Banded Hip Bridges x15

• Clam Shells x15

• Dead Lifts x15

• B Stance Dead Lifts to failure

• Step Ups to failure

• Kick Backs x15

• Curtsey Lunges x15

  Now repeat this as a circuit until you can't anymore.

I said what I said. We're working on gains right now, which means you gotta kick your own ass pretty aggressively. During each move, I want you to actively think about the shape of the muscle and where it is, and how it's supposed to contract through each rep. Hold each contraction for a quick second before moving onto the next rep.

Back Work: Use weights that you are comfortable with but that challenge you starting at rep 5.

• Standing Shoulder T's 1 minute

• Side Stretch 1 minute

• Table Top Shoulder Cars 1 minute

• Bent over Rows x15

• Lat Rows x15

• Serves x15

• Banded Shoulder Rounds x15

• Lat Pull Downs to failure

• Central Lat Pulls to failure

• Rolling T Side Planks x15 each side

But wait, there's more!

There's a lot more involved, and for you there may be even more muscle compensations and weaknesses to pin point and then train. I certainly found a few. This is simply a very basic and generalized outline of my experience and how I've spent the last three months training to correct it.

My low core is stronger, My glutes have completely changed shape and I'm getting full engagement in every workout now. My mom pooch has shrunk significantly and I find myself with a lot more energy lately because my compensatory muscles aren't doing so much extra work anymore. I can take deeper breaths and my brain isn't starved. And eating pasta or pizza once a week and seeing it all go to my muscle gains ain't too bad either.

My waist has tapered as my lats have grown. My shoulders are more defined, and I went down in band size in my bras and down a shirt size. My triceps are popping and wrapping around to my shoulders as they should be, and my posture is that of a Goddess- without any back pain.

Is my ass perfect though? Nah, I still got some work to do. But now I can do lunges and squats and FEEL my booty muscles doing their job, and not relying on my quads to do everything. I'm now adding more leg work into my daily routines to keep my svelte legs svelty, and I'm not concerned about my quads stealing the spotlight anytime soon.

Do you have quad dominance? Are there other areas of muscle dominance you've noticed and don't know how to get around it? Hit me up, babes, let's problem-solve together.