3 KEY EXERCISES TO GROWING YOUR GLUTES (2024)

Are you struggling to grow your glutes, or just don’t know where to start?

Keep reading if you want to learn some tips and tricks, as well as my three key exercises for growing your glutes.

Although I feel as if glutes are the hardest to grow, they are still my favorite, because, who doesn’t love a challenge and some booty gains!?

For the longest time I wasn’t seeing much progress, and it was because I wasn’t aware of how to make a muscle to mind connection during the exercises that I was preforming. You can rep out 15 hip thrusters all day, but if you aren’t making that connection, you may be wasting your energy.

To make this connection, it takes a lot of focus and consistent practice. I would suggest starting each workout with glute activation exercises to fire up your muscles.

Glute Activation Examples:

1. Hip Adductor Machine: 2 sets of 30 reps with medium/light weight

2. Banded Crab Walks: 2 sets of 20 total reps

3. Banded Standing Side Kicks: 2 sets of 10 reps each leg

4. Banded Standing Kick Backs: 2 sets of 10 reps each leg

Your glutes are composed of three different muscles; gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus. In order to target these three different muscles, it is important to train them with a variety of movements.

You may see a lot of interesting glute exercises on YouTube and Instagram, but when it comes down to it, sticking to the basics is going to be the most effective for making progress.

After 3 years of learning about my body and training, I truly feel as if I finally know what it takes to grow the muscles in your glutes.

With that being said, my top three key exercises for glutes are the following:

1. Hip Thrusters

Hip Thrusters are one of the most effective exercises when it comes to growing your glutes. They mainly target the gluteus maximus, which is the largest muscle in your glutes.

When your glutes are in full hip extension, they are proven to be most activated; which is why hip thrusters are so effective. When performing this exercise, make sure you are pushing up through your heels and holding a squeeze at the top for maximal results.

You can make progress two different ways; heavy weight and low reps, or light weight and high reps. To ensure your muscles don’t get used to the movement, I suggest changing it up every other week with your rep and set ranges. This will keep your glutes from plateauing.

2. Step Ups

The second key exercise to growing your glutes is Step Ups. The reason why I love step ups so much is because I feel a BURN in my glutes every time I do them. Weighted or not, they KILL me.

The force of acceleration from driving through your heels is what stimulates glute activation and growth. I have found both weighted and body weight step ups to be extremely effective.

Important things to remember about this exercise are:

(1) Make sure you are using an appropriate box/step height that allows you to feel your muscles at work.

(2) Keeping complete control of the lowering portion of the exercise. No plopping down! The slower you perform this exercise, the better. You want to feel the burn on the way down as well as the way up.

(3) Lastly, having a slight lean forward to increase the amount of force produced on the way up.

Keep these tips in mind next time you are preforming a Step Up for maximal results!

3. Lunges

The third and final key exercise to growing your glutes is Lunges. If these are done correctly, you will be crawling your way out of the gym.

When preforming a Lunge the most important things to keep in mind are:

(1) Using a weight that is attainable for a solid number of reps

(2) Taking longer strides

(3) Keeping most of your weight in your front leg, driving up through your heels

(4) Engaging your core

(5) Slow stabilized steps

I personally prefer walking lunges over stationary, but they can be done either way.

You can add all the fancy glute exercises in between, but just remember that the basics is what will give you maximal results.

Add these key exercises into your next leg day and keep these tips in mind. I hope you guys take ideas from this and use it in your own glute routine!

LET’S MAKE SOME BOOTY GAINS!

Thank you so much for reading xoxo