Making butt rounder/firmer/maybe bigger on calorie deficit?

All I'm reading right now is a debate between people who say you can only build and tone a booty if you're eating over your maintenance amount of calories, and others saying that you can be on a calorie deficit and lose weight whilst working your booty, so which is true? I want my bum to look nicer, but I also have quite a bit of excess body fat that I want to get rid of, so what shall I do?

Squats, RDLs and hip thrusts. The debate is confusing. If you're skinny already and need to grow an ass then eat above maintenance while training, if you're fat eat at a deficit. Both will lead to muscle gain in the bum and both will lead to your goal of having a bigger ass albeit eating more will lead to it quicker but will result in fat gain. Some of it is genetic though so be prepared. Tell me your stats: weight, height and how long you've been lifting/training for and I'll tell you how to proceed.

I'm assuming your female? SQUATS!!! Srsly, squats alone will get you a great booty, adjust your diet if you want to loose weight (or gain).

Thanks for replying! I'm 5'2, weigh about 125lbs. I'm currently on a 500 deficit diet, but I do oit with the fitbit app, so I eat more if I do more exercise, but always maintain the -500. I've not really been doing any strength training yet, I've been doing HIIT training for the past two years thanks to which I lost about a stone, and firmed up all over, but I've just bought a kettlebell and wanted to do more weighted stuff. I naturally have a bigger butt, and it's not saggy or anything (god this sounds like im bragging, i'm not, it just runs in the family), like its always been quite plump BUT i want it to be better if you know what I mean?

Hmm from that height and weight I'd say you're not too fat. You could probably eat at a deficit and continue to lose fat and gain some muscle seeing as you haven't done anything weighted. A kettlebell unfortunately isn't gonna get you that instagram ass, like WoodyMKC has said do stuff like heavy squats with a barbell and deadlifts (I reccommend romanian deadlifts over stifflegged) also add in hip thrusts and you should be good to go. Also look online for some tailored programs and you could do one of those. Once you stop getting stronger then I'd suggest to increase the amount you eat and then after a good amount of time 6-12 months you can start cutting down to lose the fat.

Unfortunately the kettlebell is all I've got cause I can't go to a gym (personal reasons), so I'm very limited in what I can do

You can buy low level weights cheaply including a barbell, I bought some weights and a barbell for about £20 from argos a few years ago. As a (petite and relatively lighto) female I doubt you'd be lifting much (no sexism intended ) so this might be a suitable option. A barbell is a gods gift for weight lifting, it can be used for legs, chest, arms etc.......

For the first 6-12 months you can build muscle in a deficit. Barbell squats and stiff-legged deadlifts will be your main friends, have heavy days (heavy weights, 5-6 reps, good few minutes rest between sets to get your breath back) and light days (lighter weights, highish reps, shorter rest periods) for best results.

Weighted hip thrusts imo much more effective.

People love the big three just way too much (i.e. squats deadlift press).

Anyway @OP, I suggest just youtubing it. Plenty of videos for butt workouts on there, that will hit your ass, as well as burning off some calories since that is what you want to do. And yes like Woody said, ofc you can build muscle while overall losing weight.

I wouldn't go as far as to say they were much more effective, or even more effective. As effective, though? Possibly. Tbh I'm normally a proponent of adding in plenty of isolation exercises for glutes as well if your main goal is to make them bigger, did mean to come back in later and add a post on this as I got distracted writing my first post and cut it short. A post that I made here a few weeks ago answers this very same question in more detail https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4598272#post70453698

I'm far from TSR's biggest lover of the "big 3" btw, I don't see why people place so much emphasis on them unless you're a powerlifter. Squats, yeah fair enough, but there are alternatives if you have trouble with them for whatever reason. Flat bench press is a crap bodybuilding exercise, always better alternatives (using dumbbells has actually been shown to recruit a higher number of chest fibres via EMGs). Conventional deadlifts cause too much overlap in most routines IMO, since they use such a large amount of different muscles so unless you're on a full-body routine, some areas used might not recover optimally. Rack pulls and SLDLs are IMO the better choice for any kind of split routine, including upper/lower type routines.

Well it was more a general comment. You always see people telling others to do the big 3.

And oh yea, I used to do the Guillotine press though. But standard bench press is terrible, there are so many better alternatives indeed.

Yeah I didn't think you were just talking about me in general, just wanted to give my stance on it

I'd like to have seen machine presses tested by EMG as well, just out of interest. I've been using machines as my main chest exercises for a good while and my chest has really thickened up this past year or two, even though 2016 was a very inconsistent year of training for me.

Barbell bench allows you to go heavier so you're able to have greater tension and resistance than with dumbbells.

Yea I am torn on that, I am surprised manufacturers of machines haven't done the studies themselves. Or they did and it turns out machines perform terrible so just didn't publish.

@danuuutka
Body weight exercises are useless. You need some resistance. Heavy squats 3x per week on a 4 or 5 sets for 5 reps scheme should be good for glutes alone. Personally, I don't think you should do heavy/medium/light days, unless you're going to get burnt out because of frequency. As a beginner though, you should be able to progress much faster than somebody more experienced so I would take advantage of going heavier while you are starting out.