3 Must-Do Exercises I Did to Grow My Glutes
I saw major results once adding these exercises to my routine.
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The glutes are a major muscle group that gym-goers often want to target, whether it be for body composition purposes or as a way to increase strength in leg movements such as the squat or deadlift. For myself, growing my glutes was an important goal of mine for those two very reasons. Through personal experimentation, I have determined the leg exercises that played the biggest role in helping me grow a strong set of glutes.
1. Barbell Hip Thrusts
You’ve likely seen many individuals at the gym performing variations of this exercise, but it is commonly done with a barbell. It’s a movement that is known to target the glutes heavily, and rightfully so. In terms of muscle activation, it targets the glutes the most, followed by the hamstring muscles, and then the quadriceps muscles to a lesser degree.
Unlike many other glute-targeting exercises such as cable kickbacks or hip abductor machines, the hip thrust is an exercise that can allow for very high external loads to be used. Even though the back squat is another exercise that people can often lift heavy weight in; it doesn’t activate your glutes to the same extent as the hip thrust (don’t get me wrong, squats are a good exercise for your glutes — just not to the same extent as hip thrusts!).
I’ve began incorporating the barbell hip thrust into my lower body workouts around a year ago, and have really found them to be an effective way to target my glutes using heavy weights. Once I began doing hip thrusts regularly (around twice a week), I’ve also noticed that my squat and deadlift have improved measurably. Having strong glutes translates well to my squat and deadlift because those are both exercises that also requires high glutes strength to perform optimally.
Note: A small tip to activate your glutes even more!!
A tip that can be used to increase the activation of your glutes even more is to externally rotate your feet when performing the exercise. A study involving 7 personal trainers performing different variations of the barbell hip thrust showed that by rotating your feet outward, it increases gluteus maximus activation by around 40%. This rotation allows for your gluteus maximus to have a greater capacity to be involved in the movement.
As well, externally rotating your feet increases the distance between both your feet. It’s been shown that performing the back squat with the feet placed 140% of shoulder width activates the gluteus maximus more than if the feet were to be placed at 75% of shoulder width. These results can likely explain in part why employing a wider distance between your feet (through externally rotating your feet) increases gluteus maximus activation in the hip thrust as well.
2. Bulgarian Split Squats/Lunges/Step-up’s
I have found the Bulgarian split squats to be the exercise that is most effective in inducing mechanical tension (stretching) in my glutes. The high range of motion that can be performed from simply placing the back leg on a bench or box allows you to really target your glutes.
I began doing Bulgarian split squats within the first year I started going to the gym and believe it was the exercise that really allowed me to start adding size to my glutes. I experience soreness in my glutes from doing the Bulgarian split squat that is incomparable to any other leg exercise. It’s truly an exercise that I love/dread doing every week! Lunges and step-up’s have been quite effective in activating my glutes as well (and are quite similar to the Bulgarian split squats in mechanics), so I do like to rotate these in with Bulgarian split squats to add variation.
Okay, but does the research show that these exercises activate the glutes heavily?
There have been several studies done studying how much these exercises activate different lower body muscles. In a systematic review comparing the activation of the gluteus maximus in different leg exercises, it appears that the step-up induces the highest degree of gluteus maximus activation (more than the squat, deadlift, lunges, and hip thrust). This is likely due to the glutes involvement in the stabilization of the knee and hip that is required to properly perform this movement. In another study recruiting females with resistance training experience, the forward lunge activated the gluteus maximus more than the back squat and stiff leg deadlift. This is likely due to the gluteus maximus’ role in abducting (externally rotating) the hip.
So despite these exercise not being ones that can be lifted at as great loads as the squat, hip thrust, or deadlift, it’s a movement that has been proven to strongly activate the glutes (through research and personal experience).
3. Hip Abductor Machine
You may wonder why I’m adding the hip abductor machine to this list instead of the squat or deadlift. Despite machine’s often being seen as being inferior to using free weights, the hip abductor machine has helped me increase the strength of my abductor muscles, a personal weakness of mine.
The squat is an exercise I have often struggled with, as it’s a movement I’ve found to be very difficult to increase strength in. Often when I increased weight when I squatted, I experienced a lot of knee valgus (knee’s caving in). I finally attributed this issue to having weak abductor muscles, as I wasn’t able to properly externally rotate my hips when the weight got heavy, leading to the caving in of my knees. By incorporating the hip abductor machine into my workout routine, I’ve largely resolved this issue and can now squat with better form.
Even though the hip abductor machine isn’t a compound movement exercise, I have to give it credit for helping me improve my squat. By using the hip abductor machine to help fix my squat, I can now maximize the use of the back squat to activate my glutes.
Take-Away Points
By adding the barbell hip thrust, Bulgarian split squats/lunges/step-ups, and the hip abductor machine to my lower body workouts, I’ve seen considerable progress in strengthening and adding mass to my glutes. I highly recommend trying out these exercises in your lower body routine to help maximize your muscle/strength gains!
