Figure Athlete - Solutions for Fat Bottom Girls

Solutions for Fat Bottom Girls
by Krista Schaus

You know the lyrics, but no matter how much Freddie Mercury wants to praise fat bottom girls, those of us who actually possess one aren't buying it!

Maybe Freddie wasn't the best judge of what makes a quality female ass.

If you'd make Freddy proud with your fat bottom, perhaps you've talked yourself into believing that it's genetic and will never change. From my own personal experience and following the progress of many a fat bottom girl (FBG), I can state that this isn't the case at all. There are solutions! The key is making the most of your body type and unique profile and not allowing the DNA excuse to load you down, literally.

We'll look at nutrition, supplementation, and exercise protocols that are sure to make you proud to get changed in the locker room with your butt away from the lockers.

This certainly won't be an exhaustive list, but I can confidently give a few answers to the question "why me?" As a reformed FBG myself, I've spent some time learning from the best, researching the issue, and using myself as a guinea pig throughout much of my adult life.

Genetic Factors: "Yo Mamma!"

Yes, we all hate this answer because it implies that we should just live with it and that there's nothing we can do. Not entirely true.

One genetic consideration is upper and lower body muscle and structural balance. Some women will have naturally larger lower bodies compared to their upper. You can take your wrist and ankle measurements to see if this applies to you. If you have a relatively large ankle to wrist measurement, building girth in the upper body can help strike a balance.

Another genetic factor is having a physiological predisposition to storing fat in our lower body by inherently having more fat cells in the hips, thighs, calves, and glutes.

Lastly, you have an estrogen-dominant hormone profile. Yes, we're supposed to have more estrogen, but it's all about balance. An excess or imbalance will reveal itself through more fat on your lower body.

If you're the estrogen-dominant, lower body fat type, you're already familiar with the profile indicators. Even when you get leaner, your upper body will be defined with veins crisscrossing through striated muscles, but your lower body will be soft with little to no muscular cuts. I call it the "Mr. Potato Head complex." Where it looks like someone stuck someone else's lower body on your upper body — like they belong to two entirely different people.

Estrogen imbalances aren't entirely your parent's fault. Excess estrogen may be the result of environmental toxins and situational factors.

You can still blame your parents for other "issues."

Xenoestrogens: There are multiple sources within our environment that'll cause estrogen imbalances. One that's been highly reported on recently is xenoestrogens.Xenoestrogens are hormone disruptors — synthetic chemical substances that imitate or enhance the effect of estrogens.

We often associate xenoestrogens with plastics, but they're found in many other common products such as paraben-containing sunscreens and lotions, weed killers and insecticides, food preservatives, detergents, lubricants, and paint. So, it's very important to reduce your exposure to things that have unintended estrogenic effects.

Water and soil contamination: Excess estrogens also end up in the water and soil, so know where your food comes from! Favor frequenting your local farmer's market over the big chain grocery stores and consider growing some produce and herbs of your own. A second best option is hormone-free meats and buying the organic variety of high-pesticide produce, such as berries and spinach.

As for water, xenoestrogens are leached from plastic drinking bottles and also find their way into the water supply. Use glass containers for storing food and drinking water as opposed to plastics. Freezing water bottles or leaving them in a hot car ranks high on the "things to avoid" list.

Food preparation: In addition to considering the source of your food and water, you need to think about how you're preparing things. The heat from microwaving leaches plastics into the food and also destroys 97% of the flavanoids. These flavanoids can play a vital role in balancing estrogen, as there are many foods that act as botanical estrogen modulators.

Many people are simply not aware that certain things we're swallowing and soaking in are increasing estrogen.

Alcohol: Countless fitness professionals warn male clients that "beer equals man boobs," but alcohol leads to FBG syndrome in both sexes. Many would think of FBG syndrome as a woman's problem, but I've seen lots of men showing high estrogen through their impressive cleavage. Numerous studies confirm that alcohol increases estrogen in both men and women. Alcohol does this by affecting liver enzyme activity and causing poor detoxification of estrogens.

Lavender and tea tree oil: Even though we don't necessarily eat them, I'll list them here because they're ingested or absorbed into the body through other means. Research shows that the body absorbs much more through bathing in something than it does consuming it. This is great if you're soaking in an Epsom salt bath after a tough workout, because I don't want to drink it anyway!

But, it's bad if you enjoy soothing soaks in a lavender mud bath or often use tea tree oil to treat various ailments — both of which have been shown to increase estrogen in the body. This may explain why my grandma likes lavender so much; at 80 she can benefit from a boost of estrogen. On the other hand, my fat butt and I will opt to relax and smell sweet in a variety of other ways.

There are situations throughout our lives that contribute to estrogen imbalances, with two of the major ones being pregnancy (throw in estrogen-containing birth control pills here as well) and aging.

Pregnancy: I'm going to keep this one short and sweet because anyone who's ever been pregnant, had babies, breast fed, or taken birth control knows how all of these affect your hormones. The more children or pregnancies you've had, the more your hormones are affected afterwards and may not return to "normal" (I'll use that term lightly).

If you've had multiple births, complicated pregnancies, and/or surgery your hormones will be further disrupted and will take longer to balance out, if at all. Antibiotics taken during or after your pregnancy will compound these effects.

Aging: Aging increases estrogen by increasing aromatase activity. Aromatase is an enzyme whose function is to selectively convert adrogens to estrogens. We can't control the fact that we all age (at the same rate, by the way), but there are other factors known to increase aromatase that we can control — obesity, smoking, and alcohol.

Estrogen is neither good nor bad. Like everything in this world, it's about balance. A hot topic in the research world is about how early menopause and premenopause are caused by too much estrogen, rather than the conventional culprit of not enough estrogen. To learn more, take a peek at this article from Women to Women.

Whatever the cause, the solutions are what matter. This has always been an area of keen interest for me, as I spent many a year looking over my shoulder and not being happy with what I saw looking back.

Through my own personal journey as a reformed FBG, I've picked up effective nutritional, environmental, exercise, and supplement solutions.

Veggies and protein: Your food pyramid should follow the "lean and green" rule. This means eat plenty of fresh vegetables, meat, eggs, and fish. Along with that, add in some organic raw nuts and seeds, organic yogurt, kefirs, cottage cheese, and some beans and lentils.

Really focus on cruciferous vegetables. They're natural estrogen modulators, with watercress receiving the gold standard. Other valuable veggies are broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, arugula, and kale.

Fats: Replace processed, crappy non-food carb products with essential oils wherever possible. But, stay away from flax seeds and flax oil. Flax is a source of phytoestrogens, and there's mixed research on whether phytoestrogens are beneficial or harmful to estrogen. Plus, flax oil is almost always rancid when you purchase it. Organic flax seed hulls are also estrogen modulators.

If you're a peanut butter addict like most FBG's, replace the Skippy with cashew butter and limit intake to one teaspoon daily.

Go organic: Eat more locally grown foods. In lieu of local, eat organic, whole foods as often as possible. Soak and wash your fruits and vegetables with distilled water, which has been proven more effective at getting rid of pesticides and microbes than other commercial washes and systems.

Improve your sleep habits: Your adrenal glands recharge during a proper night of sleep, which is somewhere between 7.5 and 9 hours of quality, uninterrupted sleep. If you go to bed too late, get up frequently, or toss and turn you're not fully recharging your system, and you'll never perform at optimal levels.

Limit nighttime TV and computer use: By watching TV or using a computer too late at night, you'll interfere with your body's natural cortisol rhythms, which will disrupt the rest of your hormone system. Plus, your time-management issues will disappear! No more excuses for not having the time to prepare foods once the average 17 hours a week in front of the boob tube are cut down.

Have more sex: Sex helps regulate and balance hormones like nothing else. Talk about Testosterone and growth hormone increases! I know many of you'll be printing this off and posting it on the fridge. Oh, this one helps you sleep well too depending on how good the sex was, where you're having it, or who you're having it with!

Don't sweat the small stuff: Stress, anxiety, monkey-mind, "hurried woman syndrome," and the likes will mess with your hormones. Learn to perceive everyday stuff as just that — stuff — rather than every little obstacle or unpredicted event being a crisis. It's just life and we live it every day until the day we die. Change your thinking to change your body.

Make time for you: As women, we often put everyone else's wants, goals, and needs ahead of our own. If you want to make a balanced physique a priority, you need a balanced life and a balanced mind. Put your stuff at the top of the list for a change and watch the physical changes transpire!

From experimenting with my own body over the last decade and experience with hundreds of clients, I've found the following protocols to bring very effective results in reducing lower body fat, eliminating cottage cheese butt, and taking many clients out of the FBG category.

• Use hypertrophy rep ranges for 75% of the total weekly training volume.

• Incorporate anaerobic lactic energy systems protocols into your weekly training, such as interval training comprised of 30-seconds of high intensity followed by 90-seconds at a lower intensity. I like to use bike sprints to whittle the butt down, as any trainee can master them.

• Train frequently, as in five to six days a week. When I drop down to three or four days a week to prepare for a powerlifting contest, my butt advertises the decreased training frequency.

• Throw "metabolism boosters" in three to five days a week. Running step-ups, burpees, or skipping are all great examples. You'll be amazed what the extra few minutes of exercise will do for you!

• Spinning, aerobics, steady state running, water aerobics, and Pilates won't help. Some will even make the problem worse.

• Do a "finishing" exercise at the end of one of your upper body and one of your lower body workouts. Pick an exercise and perform one all-out, ass-busting set to complete failure.

• Finish strength training sessions with 20 to 30 minutes of lower intensity, long-stride walking on a treadmill. Set the incline at about 3.8 for additional fat burning benefits.

• Favor lower body movement over upper body movements with a minimum of one to one ratio of upper to lower. Many FBG's avoid lower body exercises and "hate doing legs." This is part of the problem!

• Use unilateral (one leg working at a time) lower body movements in a ratio of two to one. Make split squats, step-ups, one-legged hamstring curls, and all their variants staples in your program.

• Adhere to the BOSS Rule: Train Beyond Our Self-imposed Strength Limitations.

• Always try and squeeze out two more reps than you think you're capable of doing.

• Find a training partner who scares you in some way.

• If you're having slight anxiety attacks on your way to train, that's a good sign that you're training hard.

• Train at such an intensity that people question your sanity. But, still train smart. Crazy training isn't the same as stupid training.

• Mentally act as if you're at war with the weights — every rep is a life or death battle and failure or breaking form equals death.

Beginners

Monday: Lower body

Tuesday: Rest

Wednesday: Upper body and introduction to energy systems training

Thursday: Rest

Friday: Lower and upper body

Saturday and Sunday: Rest and recovery methods

Reps: Beginners should remain predominantly in the 8 to 15 rep range.

Sets: 2 to start, working up to 4

Rest: 30 to 60 seconds

Duration: 30 to 40 minutes

Follow each training session with 20 minutes of moderate intensity steady state cardio.

Intermediate and Advanced

5 Day Schedule

Monday: Chest, back, and bike sprints

Tuesday: Rest

Wednesday: Legs

Thursday: Arms and bike sprints

Friday: Rest

Saturday: Cycle starts over with Monday's workout

Sunday: Rest

7 Day Schedule

Monday: Lower body strength

Tuesday: Upper body hypertrophy

Wednesday: Bike sprints or rest

Thursday: Lower body hypertrophy

Friday: Upper body strength

Saturday: Sprints (hill or track) or rest

Sunday: Rest

Reps: For the 7 day schedule, hypertrophy days are in the 8 to 12 rep range. For the 5 day schedule, begin in the relative strength ranges (5 to 7 reps) and finish in the functional hypertrophy range (8 to 10 reps).

Sets: Anywhere from 3 to 8 sets depending on the rep range.

Rest: For hypertrophy rep ranges, 30 to 60 seconds, 90 seconds for relative strength, and 120 seconds for strength workouts (reps of 2 to 5).

Duration: Anywhere from 40 to 60 minutes.

Sample Lower Body Hypertrophy Workout

Duration: 3 to 6 weeks, performed once or twice weekly

A1) 1 and 1/4 barbell squats (medium stance)

4 x 8

4010 tempo

90 seconds rest

A2) Lying 1 and 1/4 leg curl

4 x 8

3110 tempo

60 seconds rest

B1) Barbell Bulgarian split squats (bar in front)

3 x 10/10

31X0 tempo

45 seconds rest

B2) Dumbbell high step-ups (dumbbells at shoulders)

3 x 10/10

2110 tempo

45 seconds rest

C1) Standing calf raise (toes in)

3 x 10

3010 tempo

30 seconds rest

C2) Hanging knees to chest

2 x 12-15

2111 tempo

30 seconds rest

D) Jumping medicine ball split squats (Finisher)

1-3 x max

Add set every 2 workouts

Even though the focus is on the lower body, don't forget about the total package! You'll achieve better total-body symmetry by putting some impressive girth and width on your upper body.

Clean eating and targeted training protocols go a long way to reforming your FBG, but there are key supplements that'll help turn you into a lean, mean glute-machine!

Zinc and magnesium: Often physique flaws are a result of deficiencies, and zinc and magnesium top the list. These minerals help you assimilate all of your other nutrients, improve your sleep allowing your hormones to rebalance, and increase your free Testosterone.

It's also a simple way to test stomach acid levels if you've never done the HCl Challenge. If you take a generous dose of ZMA before bed and don't feel sleepy, then you're likely not optimally absorbing your supplements.

Fish oil: Many women are still deficient in essential oils. Without enough quality fats, the body won't feel liberated to burn fat. Even if you're severely cutting for a physique show, never eliminate fish oil.

As a general rule, the more imbalanced your lower body fat, the more fish oil you need. I recommend one gram per pound of bodyweight for my FBG clients. General protocols for a meaningful attack would be three Flameout capsules per feeding, based on three meals and two snacks.

Resveratrol: Even though alcohol is out, you can still get the estrogen-blocking benefits of a powerful compound in red grapes and wine. Resveratrol, found in grapes, is an agonist for the estrogen receptor. Supplement with REZ-V rather than drinking red wine routinely, as resveratrol's concentration in red wine is highly variable.

Post-workout nutrition: Add one to two scoops of Biotest's Surge to chilled fenugreek tea and one teaspoon of cinnamon. My favorite flavors of Surge are root beer float and chocolate. You'll need this to continue training hard if you're following "lean and green" at most other meals.

For the carb tolerant, you'll also need some carbs at breakfast and your next meal post-workout. I personally love having Corn Flakes with whey protein, glutamine, and cinnamon as my next meal after my immediate post-workout liquids.

The fenugreek and cinnamon are used to aid in sugar management and insulin sensitivity. We want to make sure those carbohydrates go the right places and create that balanced look we're striving for!

6:30 AM — Upon Waking

Chilled green tea with freshly squeezed lemon

Branched chain amino acids (BCAA's)

6:45 AM — Metabolism Booster

100 alternating front lunges

75 back alternating lunges

50 step-ups to second step

30 squats

7:00 AM — Breakfast

1/2 cup egg whites

1/2 cup extra lean ground beef

1 cup spinach

1/4 cup salsa

3 Flameout capsules

2 REZ-V capsules

9:30 AM — Snack

Chilled fenugreek tea

1.5 scoops Metabolic Drive

1/2 a scoop of Superfood

3 Flameout capsules

10:30 AM — Train

BCAA's before and during

12:00 PM — Post-Training

Root Beer Surge with cinnamon

1:00 PM — Lunch

1 chicken breast

1/2 sweet potato

1 cup broccoli

3 Flameout capsules

2 REZ-V capsules

3:30 PM — Snack

1/2 cup cottage cheese

1/4 cup organic yogurt or kefir

1 medium apple

3 Flameout capsules

6:00 PM — Dinner

15 shrimp

Sautéed garlic and onion

1 cup asparagus steamed

3 Flameout capsules

9:00 PM — Optional Snack

1 scoop Metabolic Drive

1/2 scoop Superfood

3 ZMA capsules

You may think that by simply following basic protocols to get leaner, you'll whittle your butt down. For the genetically gifted and hormonally balanced, that's likely true. But, in all my years of practice, I've yet to find such a person. Based on my experience with myself and many FBG clients, all the hard work and deprivation of standard leaning protocols may still leave you looking imbalanced.

Targeted results require a targeted approach! Don't take the shotgun approach. Know your target, select the right ammunition, and destroy the enemy (your fat ass).

By following the guidelines outlined above, you'll turn your former source of embarrassment into one of your best assets!

Krista Schaus is a certified PICP strength coach, Biosignature assessor, and personal trainer who owns and operates Defining Edge Fitness Inc. out of Ontario, Canada.

She's ranked among the Canadian Powerlifting Union's Top 20 Female Powerlifters and is currently preparing for her first IFBB sanctioned bodybuilding event.

You can learn more about Krista at DefiningEdge.ca.

Discuss | Rate | Add Favorite | Print Version