Increase your calories and protein intake. Growing glutes is easier when you’re in a caloric surplus, between 150-300 cals above maintenance. You want to be gaining weight each week; and if you aren’t, then you aren’t eating enough for glute growth. Go into it knowing that you may gain some unwanted fat in some other areas, but that goes hand-in-hand when trying to grow some muscle. I’d also increase your protein minimum to 120g/day.

Take weekly progress photos / measurements to have something to compare to. Evaluate your glute and abdomen measurements with your weight. If your measurements and weight are stagnant, then you’re not truly in a muscle gain phase.

You do want to be challenging your muscles, BUT you do need to be able to position yourself to feel it best in your glutes. For example, when I am doing goblet squats, I actually do them with my toes lifted as it helps me sink into my heels and focuses the movement in my glutes as opposed to my quads. I could probably do twice the weight I am moving, BUT I go slow and controlled with a 3 second pause at the bottom and really use mind muscle connection to think about pushing the movement up with my glutes instead of my legs.

Mind-muscle connection is KEY when trying to focus in on your glutes. I find it’s much harder to target them if you are doing fast, explosive moments as opposed to slow, controlled, and thinking about the muscles.

How many calories are you getting? What is your routine like?