Lifestyle
Step into any gym these days and you'll notice most girls in there are doing squats, lunges and those moves that make you look like you're a dog peeing against a fire hydrant (funnily enough, they're actually called 'Fire Hydrants'). Why? Well, because everyone wants a booty.
I imagine 10 or even just five years ago most gym-goers would be relentlessly doing crunches in order to get abs or sticking to the treadmill for a serious sweat session, but now, you see more and more girls lifting heavy and squatting low in order to get a big, round, perky butt. Who knows where this sudden booty trend came from (the Kardashian-Jenners might have something to do with it), but it's certainly in stark contrast to the days where women were passing around books called "Does my bum look big in this?" for fear of their own seeming "too big".
For Destiny Stephens, going to the gym was initially something she did to relieve her mental health issues. But after she got the hang of it, she learnt how to focus her efforts and now has a derriere so enviable that it even outshines the peach emoji. The 21-year-old works out a lot and maintains a healthy diet, but amazingly, she claims she got her booty without ever doing a single squat.
Due to back issues that came about from years of doing gymnastics, Destiny says she's had to avoid doing squats – the one exercise many people associate with building a booty. "I have gotten amazing results without squats!" she told Cosmopolitan.
The Canadian spoke about how she joined the gym as a teenager, working out every now and again using workouts she'd screenshotted on her phone after looking them up online. She went about three days a week and said: "The gym became my escape, and I loved it. It helped me a lot mentally."
After becoming a certified personal trainer after high school, Destiny created some specific fitness goals: having a six-pack and a rounder butt. In order to challenge herself and properly target different muscle groups, Destiny amped up her routine and started working out six times a week, between 60 to 90 minutes each time.
To focus on her glutes without doing squats, the 21-year-old worked her butt four days a week, and did whole body workouts on the other days, as well as adding on two HIIT cardio sessions twice a week too. Sounds like a lot of work.
Her go-to 'glute activators' are exercises using a resistance band, including kickbacks, single leg bridges and hip thrusts. Her 'butt builder' exercises involve repetitions of step ups, barbell lunges, and dumbell deadlifts, as well as weighted kickbacks and hip thrusts. She demonstrates a lot of her moves through her Instagram account.
However, Destiny said she saw little difference despite the doubled workout efforts and realised she needed to focus on her diet too. "I wasn't getting the results I wanted because I didn't know what to eat," she says, adding that her fast metabolism allowed her to get away with eating mainly bread and pasta while still looking "fit".
In order to get her dream body definition, destiny amped up her protein intake, big time. She says she starts the day with a protein shake (chocolate or with fruit), and a few hours later will have a meal of chicken (her preferred protein source) along with vegetables, carbs (she swapped the starchy pasta and bread for rice or sweet potatoes) and a good squeeze of chipotle sauce. She has a variation of this meal three more times throughout the day, along with another protein shake after the gym and in the evening if she craves something sweet.
While it might sound incredibly monotonous, it's this diet of four hearty meals and a few protein shakes per day that helped her finally see the results she wanted. "To build a bigger butt you have to eat more, rather than shrink down," she says.
"It's not just about my physical looks," she says of her dedication to fitness. "I go to the gym mainly because it’s my happy place. It's a lifestyle and commitment to myself."
Well, the results sure are impressive, and Destiny definitely proves that getting a peachy bum doesn't just mean doing thousands of squats.