Most people scrolling through Instagram are hunting for a miracle. They see a before and after side glutes transformation and think, "Okay, if I just do three sets of fire hydrants, I’ll fill in those hip dips." It’s a nice thought. Honestly, it's mostly a lie. Not because the people in the photos didn't work hard—they usually did—but because the "side glute" isn't even a single muscle.
Building that specific area of the body is a massive exercise in patience and anatomy. You’re dealing with the gluteus medius and the gluteus minimus. These sit under and slightly to the side of the massive gluteus maximus. When you see a transformation where someone’s hips look significantly wider or "rounder" from the front or side, you're looking at a combination of genuine muscle hypertrophy, a lower body fat percentage that reveals the shelf of the hip, and, let’s be real, lighting.
I’ve spent years looking at biomechanics and how the posterior chain actually responds to load. The "side glute" is basically the stabilizer of your hip. If it's weak, your knees cave in when you squat. If it's strong, you have a stable pelvis. But making it grow enough to change your silhouette? That takes a specific type of tension that most "influencer" workouts completely miss.
The Anatomy of the Before and After Side Glutes Transformation
If you want to understand why your own before and after side glutes journey might feel stalled, you have to look at the bone. Yeah, the skeleton. Your hip width is determined by your pelvis. If you have a high, narrow ilium, you are always going to have more pronounced "hip dips." That’s just where the muscle attaches. No amount of cable kickbacks will move a bone.
The gluteus medius is the star here. It’s fan-shaped. It’s responsible for abduction—moving your leg away from your body. To get it to grow, you have to load that movement. But here is the kicker: most people use too much momentum. They swing their leg. They feel a "burn," sure, but the burn is just lactic acid, not necessarily the mechanical tension required for myofibrillar hypertrophy.
Real growth—the kind that shows up in a grainy, non-photoshopped before and after side glutes photo—comes from progressive overload. You need to be doing seated hip abductions, but you need to be doing them with enough weight that the last two reps feel like your hips are literally going to detach. You also need to realize that the "after" in these photos usually involves a "pump." Blood rushes to the muscle, it swells, the photo is taken, and then twenty minutes later, it looks 10% smaller. That’s just biology.
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Why Your Hip Dips Aren't "Fixable" (And Why That’s Okay)
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Hip dips. Every second before and after side glutes post claims to "fix" or "fill in" hip dips.
You can't.
A hip dip is the space between your trochanter (the top of your femur) and your pelvis. Unless you're planning on getting fat injections or a silicon implant, that gap is a permanent feature of your anatomy. However, by growing the gluteus medius, you can create a "shelf" effect. This makes the upper part of the hip look more muscular, which can change the way clothes drape. It's about building the muscle above the dip, not filling the dip itself.
Dr. Bret Contreras, often called the "Glute Guy," has published numerous papers on EMG activity in the glutes. His research shows that while the gluteus maximus is the powerhouse, the medius requires lateral stability. This means single-leg work. Think Bulgarian split squats where you’re fighting to keep your hips level. That "fight" is your side glute working overtime.
The Exercises That Actually Move the Needle
Stop doing "clamshells" with a light rubber band while watching Netflix. It’s better than nothing, but it’s not going to give you a dramatic before and after side glutes result. You need resistance.
- Weighted Curtsy Lunges: These are controversial because they can be tough on the knees if your form is trash. But in terms of stretching the glute medius under load? They’re gold. Keep the chest up. Don't let the front knee wobble.
- Cable Medial Kicks: Instead of kicking straight back, kick out at a 45-degree angle. This aligns the movement with the fiber orientation of the medius.
- Heavy Seated Abduction: Don't just sit back. Lean forward slightly to change the angle of the hip. This hits the posterior fibers of the medius more effectively.
- Deficit Reverse Lunges: Adding a few inches of height to your front foot increases the range of motion. More stretch equals more potential for growth.
I remember training a client who was frustrated that her "side booty" wasn't popping. We looked at her log. She had been doing the same weight on the abduction machine for six months. Six months! Your body is an adaptation machine. If you don't give it a reason to get bigger, it won't. We bumped her weight up, dropped her reps to the 8-12 range, and lo and behold, three months later, her before and after side glutes photos actually showed a difference.
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Nutrition and the "After" Photo
You can’t build a house without bricks. You can't build a glute medius without a caloric surplus or, at the very least, maintenance with high protein. Most people trying to get a better before and after side glutes look are also trying to "tone up," which usually means they’re eating like a bird.
Muscle is metabolically expensive. Your body doesn't want to keep it. To force it to grow, you need roughly 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. If you're 140 pounds, you need 140 grams of protein. That’s a lot of chicken, lentils, or Greek yogurt. If you’re just doing the exercises but eating 1,200 calories a day, your "after" photo is just going to look like a smaller version of your "before" photo.
The Role of Body Fat in Glute Shape
There is a sweet spot for glute aesthetics. If your body fat is too high, the muscle shape is obscured by subcutaneous fat. It looks "soft." If your body fat is too low, you lose the subcutaneous fat that provides the actual roundness of the hip. Most of those "fitspo" before and after side glutes photos are taken when the person is at a specific body fat percentage—usually between 18% and 24% for women—where the muscle is visible but there’s enough fat to keep the curves.
Also, we have to talk about lighting and posing. A slight tilt of the pelvis—anterior pelvic tilt—can make the glutes look 20% larger in a photo. High-waisted leggings with "scrunch" detailing or strategic seams are designed to create an illusion of a more dramatic before and after side glutes change. When you see a photo, look at the floor. Are the floorboards curving? If they are, that "side glute" was built in Photoshop, not the gym.
Consistency and the "Boring" Reality
The truth is that a real before and after side glutes transformation takes about 18 months to two years of consistent lifting. People want it in six weeks. In six weeks, you might get a little more "firm," but you aren't adding inches of muscle tissue.
You have to love the process. You have to love the feeling of your hips burning during a heavy set of lateral walks with a thick fabric band. You have to be okay with the fact that some days you feel "flat" and other days you feel like a powerhouse.
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Actionable Next Steps for Real Growth
Forget the 30-day challenges. They are useless for long-term hypertrophy. If you want a genuine change in your before and after side glutes profile, start here:
- Track Your Lifts: If you aren't writing down your weights, you aren't training; you're just exercising. Aim to add 2.5 to 5 pounds to your primary glute movements every two weeks.
- Prioritize the Stretch: On movements like the Romanian Deadlift or the Curtsy Lunge, focus on the bottom of the movement. That’s where the most muscle damage (the good kind) happens.
- Mind-Muscle Connection: This sounds woo-woo, but it's science. If you can't "feel" your side glutes firing during a warm-up, you likely won't recruit them properly during heavy sets. Use unweighted lateral leg raises to "wake up" the medius before you hit the heavy weights.
- Eat for the Goal: Stop fearing the scale. If you want to grow a muscle, you might gain a little weight. That’s fine. It’s part of the trade-off.
- Rest: Glutes are huge muscles. They need 48 to 72 hours to recover between intense sessions. Hitting them every single day is a fast track to tendonitis, not a better "after" photo.
The most successful before and after side glutes stories aren't the ones where someone found a "secret" exercise. They're the ones where someone stopped looking for shortcuts and started treating their hip abductors like a primary muscle group. It’s hard work. It’s often boring. But when you finally see that shelf develop in the mirror, you’ll realize it was worth every heavy, painful rep.