Cables Exercises Can Target The Gluteus Maximus Gluteus Medius And Gluteus Minimus
Cable exercises can be used on double and single leg glute exercises, which is useful as this means it can challenge all of the different glute muscles located around the hips.
Two leg hinge exercises can target the gluteus maximus. Single leg and squatting type exercises can target the gluteus medius and minimus.
This means that on a single piece of equipment, you can target all three areas of the glute, which may or may not be possible with other gym equipment.
Stability Ball Lateral Crab Walks
An odd exercise that will integrate both sides of the back of your body in its natural cross-pattern activation. Basically, when one glute fires, the opposing low back muscle fires as well. This naturally happens when walking, running, or walking up stairs. Its a great exercise for this muscle firing pattern and to get your glutes working hard. Plus, it looks cool.
How to do it:
The ball should be under your head and shoulders and feel like a pillow, while your arms are outstretched to the side and fully engaged/contracted.
As with all of these stability ball exercises the key with this one is to ensure that your hips are up and your body is in a straight line from your knees to your shoulders.
Enter your glutes, which in their contraction extend your hips up.
As you move laterally a few inches to the left, youll instantly feel your right glute contract big time.
Youll also notice the left side of your lower back fire up as well, which reminds us of the intricate contralateral connection between our glutes and low back.
Creating Your Glute Workout For Mass
Below weve listed what we feel are the best exercises for glute development out there, including compound exercises like the squat and some great isolation movements. The barbell squat should be at the core of your leg training, glute training, weight training in general and your life in general, so try to include it!
Pick out 3-4 exercises and aim for 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps.
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Stronger Glutes Stronger Everything Check Out Our 10 Favorite Glute Exercises For Strength Activation And Size
The gluteus maximus that is your butt for the uninitiated is the largest muscle in the body. Even if filling out a pair of Wranglers isnt at the top of your training priorities list, developing strong glutes will help you build better squats, deadlifts, and everything in between . If you cant figure out the most efficient way to activate your glutes, youre just not going to be able to maximize your gains.
Here, youll learn why glute training is often more effective than the old well, glutes are involved in squats and deads, so that should be enough . But how do you know which glute exercises are best? Weve also included the 14 best strength-building glute moves for you to fold into your training program.
Butt Exercise: Leg Press Kickback
Degree of difficulty: 4 out of 5
- Overview: If your gym doesnt have a dedicated butt blaster machine, use this insteadit uses the same range of motion, and targets the middle portion and upper crest of the glutes.
- Get ready: Turn yourself around in a 45° leg press machine so your stomach and elbows are resting on the back pad, knees on the seat. Put one foot in the middle of the platform.
- Go: Unhinge the weight, then press your foot back at a 45° angle by straightening your leg, squeezing the glutes at the top. Return halfway to the starting position, then repeat for reps.
Kims tip: Dont arch your back. Make sure your foot is square so your toes are pointing straight down, and dont use a weight thats too heavy.
8 of 10
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The Benefits Of Training Your Glutes
For strength athletes and general lifters, training your glutes is absolutely essential. Its important to target your glutes specifically because glute-specific training can mean the difference between eternal plateaus and busting through personal records. This doesnt only apply to the lower body powerhouse moves like deadlifts and squats strong glutes are foundational to a powerful overhead press, too.
And if youre looking to improve your functional strength and tolerance of day-to-day activities, glute training is essential, too. Whether youre bending to pick up after your dog or cat, or battling that last flight of stairs up to your fifth-floor walkup, strengthening your glutes can make your life a whole lot simpler.
Bigger Butt Workout #: Hiit
Do hill sprints or cycle sprints at high resistance for 1 minute at about 90% of your max effort followed by 1 minute of active recovery. Repeat 10 times for a total of 20 minutes of exercise.
While this type of training isnt nearly as effective as weight training for building a big butt, its the best way to go if youre dead set on including some cardio in your plan and still want to give your glutes some attention.
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A 45 Degree Hyperextension
Enjoy really high glute and hamstring activation with a 45-degree hyperextension. Its a great move because the knees are straight, so the hamstrings create better force, and it has a lower chance of injury than other similar moves. There are two methods. The first method keeps neutral feet and a neutral spine, which works the hamstrings, glutes, and erector muscles. However, if you want to bias the glutes and really feel the engagement, you can perform the exercise with flared feet and a rounded spine, which disengages the erector muscles. It can look and feel counterintuitive, but it is safe to do for this kind of move.
Execution
Gluteus Maximus Exercises At Home
If you train at home without weights or you simply prefer to just do bodyweight exercises, you can still train your gluteus maximus effectively. BUT, you will need the right approach.
Just because you are training with bodyweight exercises doesnt mean progressive overload gets thrown out of the window. You just have to focus on the methods that apply to bodyweight training, which includes adding more volume to your workouts, increasing time under tension, and decreasing rest time .
It should also be noted that just because your dont have free weights at home doesnt mean you can’t increase the load. Anything can be used to add resistance to your bodyweight. For example, you could fill a backpack up with books, you could hold onto 1 gallon jugs of water, you could grab a rock from your yard, etc. Its not as easy to gradually increase the weight this way, but if you had a scale, it can be done.
Anyway, the point is, just because you dont have conventional free weights doesnt mean you cant build a stellar butt.
As with training at the gym, you need to focus on the right exercises. The following exercises will be great do building your gluteus maximus. Remember to focus on full range of motion, creating maximum tension in your gluteus maximus, and performing sets with an adequate amount of time under tension .
Single Leg Glute Bridges
Reverse Plank
Sprints
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How To Do A Reverse Lunge
Repeat 12 times on each side for three to four sets
Upper Glute Exercises With Bands
Using resistance bands is a great way to effectively work the upper glutes from home, especially if you have no other form of external resistance or weights.
11. Quadruped Banded Kickbacks
Heres how to do it:
- Get into a quadruped position, on your hands and knees, with your back as flat as possible.
- Wrap one end of the closed-loop band on your right hand.
- Place the sole of your left foot inside the other loop.
- From the quadruped position, kick back the left leg so it is straight behind you.
- You will need to play around with band placement to ensure that it provides enough resistance.
- Slowly return to the starting position.
- Repeat and make sure to train the opposite leg.
12. Banded Seated Hip Abductions
Heres how to do it:
- Sit on the edge of a chair or bench with a mini-band wrapped around your knees.
- Place your feet flat on the floor, with your heels touching.
- Place your hands on your hips for support and balance.
- From here, abduct your legs while keeping your feet in contact with each other.
- Go through the repetitions slowly.
13. Clam Shells
Heres how to do it:
- Get into a side-lying position, resting on your forearm with both knees bent.
- From here, externally rotate your top leg as high as you comfortably can while keeping your feet in contact with each other.
- Slowly return to the starting position.
- Repeat and make sure to train the other leg.
14. Lateral Banded Walks
Heres how to do it:
15. Prone Banded Hip Abductions
Heres how to do it:
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Benefits Of The Banded Barbell Romanian Deadlift
- The band helps give counterbalance to the torso, allowing you to lean forward and place more resistance on the glutes throughout the range of motion.
- This exercise prioritizes hip extension, helping build muscle and strength in the glutes, hamstrings, and adductors.
- It adds resistance to the glutes in the top position where there usually isnt any at all.
Anatomy Of The Glutes
Developing an understanding of glute anatomy will help reinforce why certain exercises or their variations are such staples in optimal glute training. Since gym time is valuable, you should probably have a working knowledge of glute anatomy. Understanding the behavior of the muscle youre targeting can prevent you from wasting time on exercises that dont stimulate the glutes to a meaningful extent.
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Use Shorter Rest Periods And Higher Reps
Some cable machines may not have a large stack of weights and that means that in order to get a strong stimulus on the muscle fibres, you should use highers reps to activate muscle fibres that are mostly responsible for your strength and size gains .
You may also find that using shorter rest periods to be beneficial as not allowing yourself to fully recover and rest means that you can reach muscle fatigue a lot sooner in subsequent repetitions .
How To Do The Landmine Side To Side Press
Hold the end of the barbell with both hands a few inches from your right shoulder. Keep your shoulders down and your chest up. Press the barbell up over the center of your body. Lower to your left shoulder. Press up from the center. Slowly lower down to your right shoulder. Keep alternating sides for an even amount of reps on each side.
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How Do These Glute Exercises Work
Dont expect to head to the gym and do every single one of these in a single session. The glutes may be strong, but theyre not invincible.
Instead, break up this list of moves into four or five different groups of exercises to hit your gluteus minimus, gluteus medius, and gluteus maximus . Piece together a few moves that require the same piece of equipmentlike, say, the suspension trainer, Swiss ball, or barbell.
You can combine them as a circuit: Do as many reps as possible of each exercise in 45 seconds, rest for 15 seconds, then move on to the next exercise rest for two minutes after each round.
Alternatively, do these exercises in traditional straight setssay, four sets of eight reps each, with 60 seconds of rest in between. Vary your rest, sets, reps, and exercise selection to ensure you make the most of these glutes exercises.
Note: Some moves only require a resistance band and help to activate the glutes, as well as increase range of motion for heavier weighted lifts like sumo squats. If you dont have a full gym, you can still get the benefits of certain exercises with a mini band .
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How Often Should You Do Glute Exercises
Everyones body is different, which makes it a little difficult to give precise recommendations on how often to train your glute muscles, but there are a few general principles that you should follow. As a general rule, larger muscle groups will require more exercise in every session and then a longer recovery time. Your glutes might not be the largest muscle group of your body, but theyre big enough to take a high level of strain and need a bit more recovery time.
As a general rule, you should probably only do glute exercises for mass two or three times a week, but in higher volumes of 8 to 15 sets per session. If youd prefer to do shorter and lighter sessions of 4 to 8 sets each, then you could get away with up to 4 sessions per week, but more than that is inadvisable. If you put too much strain on your glutes, you could end up with unpleasant injuries that will take a long time to recover from!
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Glute Workout 1 Athletic Development
The focus with this workout is strength and power development. Thus, we wont be speeding through each exercise. Instead, challenge yourself to lift heavier with fewer reps and excellent form. Take 1-3 minutes rest between sets and exercises so youre able to give 100% effort on each one.
Perform 2 sets before moving on to next exercise. Allow 1-3 minutes rest between sets.
- Kettlebell Swings 10 RM
- Quadruped Hip Extensions 10RM per leg
- Hip Thrust 6 RM
Best Glute Workout For Hypertrophy
Training the glutes for hypertrophy places an emphasis on heavier load and higher volume bilateral and unilateral versions of the bridge, hinge, and squatting patterns. Machine or cable work is a great way to stabilize the range of motion so your limiting factor is glute fatigue, not stability in the hip or spine.
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Is Your Butt Lacking Brawn Target Your Glutes Directly With These Seven Isolation Movements
Every serious lifter knows that if you want to get huge, youve got do a mix of compound and isolation exercises. However, when it comes to glute training, most bodybuilders dont do any serious isolation work because they probably dont know how to.
This article will show you what we at Performance U Hybrid Strength & Conditioning, have found to be the most effective glute targeted exercises for adding more mass to your ass!
Dont Train Too Much Or Too Hard
Dont make the mistake of blasting your glutes with too many sets per workout and taking every set to muscle failure . More is not always better.
Not only is this unnecessary, it may even slow down your glute gains in the long run. Instead, you want to end most of your sets about 1-to-2 reps shy of muscle failure.
Personally, I never train to absolute failure for more than 2-to-3 sets per workout, and never on the squat, deadlift, bench press, or military press as this can be dangerous.
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These Are Some Of The Best Glute Exercises For Mass At Home And Gym
There are so many glutes workouts to choose from which makes it hard for some people to get started, thats why we kept it simple.
You can interchange the exercises from the list above to keep things fresh as your training progresses.
These plans will guide you in the right direction on what type of butt workouts to focus on. Youve just learnt some of the best glute exercises for mass at home and gym, it is time for you to get started.
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Front Rack Split Squat
This variation has the lifter hold weight in front of them. You can use a goblet position or a Zercher position. Front rack split squats reinforce a vertical torso, further engaging the quadriceps, anterior core muscles, and upper back. The below video highlights a specialized position that prioritizes proper positioning for a more drastic leg pump.
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The Glutes On Fire Challenge
Ever heard of Celas Glutes on Fire Challenge? Its a great go-to workout to ensure you target and strengthen your glutes, while you enhance your performance and grow your confidence, she explains.
The workout contains a mixture of what the PT thinks are the most effective glute exercises combined with a rep range to ensure you hit that growth and make gains, too. Carefully created with every ability in mind, Ive developed this workout to ensure you target every angle of your booty so that you come away feeling strong, confident and the glowing goddess that you are, she goes on.
Exercise 5: Dumbbell Reverse Lunge
Reps: 12
Exercise 6: Frog Pump
Reps: 20
Prefer to workout alongside a trainer? Give this glute workout from Celas YouTube channel a go, or try her IG workout above.
