Learn to do the kettlebell swing properly to build and tone your butt.
Kettlebell Butt
What did you just say Brian?
“Kettlebell butt!”
Yeah that’s a real thing. People who do a lot of kettlebell swings and similar exercises are renowned for having nice sexy butts.
All you need to do is a search for women’s or men’s favorite body parts and the butt shows up on both lists… near the top.
So you know what you need to do… build and tone that butt.
The kettlebell swing is amazing for developing a sexy toned butt but if done wrong will not only prevent results but can potentially irritate your low back.
So let’s get right into how to create a great swing to target the butt.
How to Activate the Butt / Glutes
Ok quick and dirty:
The Butt Needs Weight
The glutes are strong and have great leverage. So they need load / weight. Little fire hydrant leg lifts or Brazilian butt whatevers just won’t cut it. Tiny little kettlebell movements that you may have seen on late night TV simply won’t cut it. So we will be picking a fairly heavy but safe kettlebell.
Fix your hike pass / back swing timing
If you sit back too soon you will load your low back. After the kettlebell reaches the top position as it starts to swing back… wait… keep waiting… don’t sit back (hike pass) yet. Wait until the kettlebell is about to hit you in the groin before you hike pass. You could also just think “wait till your arms connect to your ribs” before you hike pass.
Fix your hip snap / forward swing timing
If the kettlebell leads the way before your hips snap / glutes contract then you are missing out on all that wonderful butt toning.
Just like a crane with a wrecking ball, the crane swings and then the wrecking ball gets pulled, your hips should snap forward first and that will pull the kettlebell forward from your hike pass position.

Fatigue Those Glutes
The glutes not only need weight they are workhorses and need to be fatigued, here are some tips to fatigue those buns.
Load Up That Butt
As mentioned before you need fairly heavy weight to challenge the butt. That can be a single heavy kettlebell or once you are more advanced and your technique is spot on you can use two moderate kettlebells.

Tense Your Glutes
The kettlebell swing uses a lot of muscles, this is a good and a bad thing. It’s good because it can build and tone a lot of muscles and burn a lot of calories. Not to mention work your cardio and stamina like crazy.
But it can be bad because you can easily end up using other muscles instead of the glutes as the primary working muscles. The hamstrings, low back muscles, upper back muscles, and shoulders can easily take over.
One of the cues often used with beginners to get them to use their butt is to imagine pinching a quarter between your butt cheeks with every hip snap.
Eventually as you get better at this you want to remember how large the glute muscles really are. Take a look at the image below.

If you aren’t mindful you could end up only activating a part of your butt. But if you look at the image you can see the yellow area for the upper glutes, the green inner glutes, the blue outer glutes, and the purple lower glutes.
Every time you do swings try to feel one of those areas working. Next time pick another area. Over time you will be able feel the entire glute region activating.
Load the Glutes with a Big Backswing
Don’t stop your kettlebell short on the backswing. Let the kettlebell swing far back as if you are going to hit yourself in your butt… just don’t really hit your butt.
This stretch just really loads the glutes.
How Much How Often
2 – 3 days per week, sets of 20 – 30 reps, brief rest breaks, for about 4 – 10 minutes. Done!
Sure there are more ways to program your sets and reps. You can use time, you can use traditional sets and reps, you can have fixed rest breaks or just rest when needed and go when you are ready.
The most important point is to progress overtime by increasing the weight. So if you start with a weight that you can do sets of 15 – 20 for 8 minutes but over the course of a month you can do that same 8 minutes for sets of 25 – 30 reps then go ahead and increase the weight. Your reps will drop down and once they increase you can up the weight again.
Always focus on technique and activating the glutes by feeling them contract.
Summary
For a minimal investment of your time you can build up and tone up your butt to make the guy’s and/or ladie’s heads turn.
Until next time go build your butt.
Brian