‘I tried Tammy Hembrow’s booty guide and here’s what happened’

Tammy Hembrow’s butt is world famous and Michelle Andrews wanted in — but she got more than she bargained for.

Tammy Hembrow is like a solar eclipse. You know looking directly at her Instagram is not good for your wellbeing, and yet, you do it anyway.

Before you know it, you’re sucked into a vortex of blonde hair, booty shorts, and Mercedes Benz cars. One thumb scroll and BAM! You go from being content with your life to feeling hollow inside and Googling how much your non-essential organs are worth.

It’s all super fun.

For those unacquainted, with 9.2 million followers, Hembrow is Australia’s top Instagram influencer. Our creme de la creme, as far as taking mirror selfies and being stupidly attractive goes. This is largely because the Gold Coast mum has a bum so gravity-defying she’s the honorary 27th Kardashian sister.

Tammy Hembrow showing off her sizeable assets. Picture: Instagram

Tammy Hembrow is a social media phenomenon. Picture: Instagram

With a burgeoning empire — including an activewear line and a fitness app — to her name, I wanted to find out: if I work out like Tammy, can I too become rich, beautiful, and date B-grade rappers? Was my mediocre behind the only thing holding me back all this time?

Hint: No.

But I was going to try anyway, goddammit.

WEEK ONE

Thankfully, tammyhembrow.org had multiple options to carve the gluteal muscles of my dreams: I could buy Tammy’s ‘8 Week Booty Building’ program, her ‘At Home Booty’ program, or the ‘Gym Booty Program V2’.

Obviously, I went with the V2 program. I mean, hello, I’m not an idiot! I want the very latest upgrade of booty goodness. I want a Zeitgeist booty. A booty 2.0.

A booty that would cost me a cool $68.

To be clear, that $68 was a one-off payment for an e-book document, which almost hurt as much as my butt did after Session 1. The Gym Booty Program V2 is 16 pages in total, but once you take out all the pages that are just pictures of Tammy (four), and the introduction that rudely tells you to “NOT drink any soft drink” (three), you’re left with nine pages of actual bum-focused workouts.

To get a bum like Tammy’s, apparently I need to do three sessions a week. This frankly sounds exhausting, but my aspirations to buy a G-wagon and holiday in the Maldives keep me motivated.

See? We are basically the same person. Picture: Supplied

Tammy loves to pose with luxury cars. Picture: Instagram

I also need to focus on something called a “mind-muscle connection”, which apparently means if I think really hard about my bum while I workout, my glutes will grow (very good) without my quads and calves growing (supposedly very, very bad).

It’s rather hard to make your bum muscles wake up while telling all of their neighbours to go the hell to sleep.

These workouts make me sweat from places I didn’t think possible. My triceps! My hairline! The back of my knees! My earlobes! On one occasion, my bellybutton became a mini moat filled with perspiration and tears.

That all said, despite costing me $7.55 per page, the sessions are pretty decent and unique. When I’m not trying new and creative ways to use a leg press machine, I’m pulling poses that feel deeply wrong (kinda like impersonating a dog weeing on a fire hydrant … or a woman in the throes of labour).

This earns me plenty of side-eye from fellow gym goers, and — on one occasion — a knowing nod from another woman who clearly longs for a Tammy tush too.

No, I didn’t take an indoor shower. Yes, I need to lie down. Picture: Supplied

I’m feeling the burn, and I don’t entirely hate it.

WEEK TWO

By week two (and session four) the burn has progressed to a blaze. A raging, angry blaze that inhibits me from doing the everyday things I now realise I’ve been taking for granted, like getting out of bed. Or walking down the stairs of my apartment building. Or sitting on a toilet.

I’ve also pulled an obscure muscle somewhere around the back of my knee, which only highlights my ineptitude at “mind-muscle connection” even more.

It feels a lot like failure.

Everything below my bellybutton moat hurts.

Is this … how you do it? Picture: Supplied

I try to do all of the squats and reverse lunges and hip abduction and something-something kickbacks, but good lord. When Tammy puts these workouts on her YouTube channel, or shares a selfie on her Instagram Story, she looks like a goddess. I look like something you’d find deep in a drain pipe.

Final thoughts? I finish the fortnight with a very miserable — albeit slightly perkier — bum. A Mercedes Benz is yet to materialise in my driveway. Nor is a designer handbag in my closet. I’ve received one compliment from a seedy gym stranger on my “form”, and countless befuddled looks while I imitated weeing on inanimate objects.

Anything for a slice of Insta fame though, right guys?

Right, guys?

… Guys?

Michelle Andrews is a freelance writer and podcast host from Melbourne. Follow her on Instagram.