How Doing Wayyyy Less Cardio Helped This Insta Star Get a Boo-tay

Growing up, Katie Crewe loved dancing and playing sports like soccer, but when she went off to college, the only workouts on her radar were crunches and running on the treadmill. And because she despised the gym, those weren’t happening, like, at all.

Still, the Toronto native figured she could focus more on working out once she graduated—and she did. In 2010, Crewe’s dad, who always had been into lifting weights, bought her a gym membership, which kicked off her fave new hobby, strength training. About a year later, Crewe became certified to teach Les Mills group workouts like Body Attack, a cardio-based class with bodyweight strength moves.

Today, Crewe, 30, is a strength and conditioning specialist with more than 900,000 Instagram followers. "When I’d see people come back to my class week after week, I felt like I was positively impacting their lives," she says of her decision to ultimately make fitness her full-time gig.

But getting to that point took years, a hell of a lot of time in the gym, and even a brief foray into competitive bodybuilding. After she started teaching the Les Mills classes, she began writing workout programs for herself, incorporating moves like squats, deadlifts, bicep curls, and shoulder presses. "I wasn’t using more than 5- or 10-pound dumbbells because I couldn’t lift much more," says Crewe.

Even though her weights were tiny in comparison to the 155-pound barbell she can bench-press now, she felt significantly stronger and liked it. "That motivated me to keep lifting," she says.

In 2012, Crewe was working as an office administrator and thinking about attending law school (she ultimately decided not to go). She also started playing with the idea of signing up for a fitness competition after a few of her friends from the gym completed one.

"I don’t like being the center of attention—it makes me uncomfy," says Crewe, but she wanted to get out of her comfort zone. "The competition was a way to challenge myself mentally while getting in shape."

She placed sixth out of 30 women but felt the intensity of training for a fitness competition—weight-lifting and doing cardio six days a week—wasn't her jam. And around the same time, she realized she wanted to become a certified personal trainer.

Back then, Crewe mainly used her Instagram to show off her skills in the kitchen, but she slowly began posting more fitness selfies and workout videos. "In 2015, I realized, 'Wow, a lot of people are watching these videos,'" she says—so she kept it up.

Not long after that ah-ha moment, she posted a video of herself doing a hanging leg raise, which got more than 10,000 views. Her Instagram following took off, and now some of her videos get more than 200,000 views.

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How To Get That Butt

When Crewe started lifting weights back in 2010, a friend told her that she literally could build her butt with strength training. Crewe was shook and started focusing on power-lifting (read: lifting REALLY heavy weights) to build muscle faster. That involved lots of hip thrusts and banded moves.

 

 

After becoming a certified trainer, Crewe trained her glutes two to three times a week using exercises like hip thrusts, lunges, and glute kickbacks. Every three to six months, she’d switch up her go-to booty moves.

 

Over the next few years, her glute gains began to show. "It took a lot of time for me to get to where I am now," says Crewe.

She also dialed back the cardio as she focused more on gaining muscle: "I realized I didn’t need to do that much if my goal was to get stronger." Instead, she strength trains four to five days a week, dedicating at least two full workouts per week to both her legs and butt and devotes an additional weekly sweat sesh to random cardio activities like burpees, running, or whatever she feels like.

 

Eating For an Insta-Famous Ass

"To build a butt, you should be eating enough calories to maintain your weight," says Crewe. "You have to give your body enough energy to push hard during your workouts."

Obvi, everyone has unique nutritional needs, so you don't need to follow her lead to see your own booty gains. That said, here's a taste of her go-to meals JIC you're curious:

Breakfast: "I wake up and have coffee and a few squares of dark chocolate because that’s what I want in the morning."

Snack: "I love frozen raspberries and blueberries with coconut whip. It’s a good way to get extra fiber, and it kinda tastes like ice cream."

Lunch: "I usually have a salad with some kind of protein, like eggs, chicken, or fish. I use lots of lettuce, zoodles, beets, and tomatoes. I also make sure to have a side of carbs, like overnight oats with chia seeds or a sweet potato with almond butter."

 

 

 

Post-gym mini-meal: "To refuel, I eat veggies, protein, and more oats or potatoes."

Dinner: "I like variety, so I try to avoid eating the same protein I had for lunch. So I might have some kind of omelet or pasta or zoodles with chicken and veggies. I like to add avocado to get something fatty in there too.

Dessert: “This is an everyday thing for me. I’ll have a few squares of dark chocolate or an ice cream sandwich—or both."

Booze: "I don’t drink because I feel awful the next day. But I think it’s fine if you enjoy it! Just keep hydrated."

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Ashley Oerman Senior Wellness Editor Ashley Oerman is the Senior Wellness Editor at Cosmopolitan, covering fitness, health, and sexual health.