4 Essential exercises you need for glute growth - Wisely Natural (2024)

Creating a strong and defined lower body is a common goal among weightlifters.

One of the major muscles that falls into your lower body is your glutes. As a result, glute growth specifically is a major fitness goal for many weightlifters.

In order to grow your glutes, you’ll want to be training with the most effective glute exercises.

Then, you can incorporate these exercises in a well thought out, glute workout routine.

Although training upper body is still extremely important for women, a lot of times we emphasize training our lower bodies more. And rightfully so, since women’s lower bodies tend to naturally be stronger and carry more weight than our upper bodies.

In this post, I’m going to cover the four most essential exercises you need if you want to grow your glutes.

In this post you’ll find:

The main muscle groups in your legs

To begin your glute growth, you first want to have a better understanding of your legs.

It’s important for you to know the major muscle groups in your legs. By knowing and understanding these muscles, you can begin to train properly for maximum growth.

The main muscles that will create strong, well-defined legs are:

1. Quads
2. Glutes
3. Hamstrings
4. Calves
5. Inner thighs
6. And outer hips

Once you are aware of these muscle groups, it’s now important to have a better understanding of them.

For instance, knowing that some of these major muscle groups are actually made up of multiple smaller muscles.

For example, 4 different muscles make up your quads and 3 different muscles make up your glutes.

This may be shocking, but it’s true! And, extremely essential for you to know in order to maximize growth.

The three different glute muscles you need to be training

There are three main different muscles in your glutes. Training all three of these muscles is how you’re going to get the best shaped, fully developed glutes.

These muscles are:

The glute medius – This is the top part of your glute and the hardest portion to target.

The glute maximus – This muscle is the biggest portion of your glutes and makes up the majority of their size. Additionally, it’s probably the easiest portion to target.

And finally the glutes minimus – This is the muscle is at the very bottom of your glutes and is also fairly easy to target.

Every glute exercise you do in the gym will target one of these glute muscles specifically.

It’s crucial to understand which region of the glutes each exercise is meant to target.

By doing this, you can then work on feeling the exercise exactly what region is meant to be working and focus on contracting that portion.

Focusing on exactly where each exercise is training will allow you to develop a much better mind to muscle connection.

Which will be a game changer for your glute gains, I promise.

The four most essential glute exercises you need in your glute routine

I can guarantee you that once you start incorporating these four exercises into your glute workout routine, you’ll see growth like never before.

However, as with all exercises in the gym, in order to see the most effective growth, you need to be training with proper form.

Along with proper form you need to focus on time under tension as well as training intensely and to failure.

My glute growth skyrocketed once I combined these training strategies with the following exercises. I guarantee you that if you do these exercises and train correctly, then yours will too.

Four exercises you need in your glute routine in order to see growth

Hipthrusts (and glute bridges)

The first exercise, or more like two exercises, on this list are hip thrusts and glute bridges.

I would say that these are probably the two best exercises for straight on, targeting your glutes.

The difference between glute bridges and hip thrusts

Although the motion is almost the same, glute bridges are just a slightly different variation of hip thrusts.

In order to do glute bridges, you’d set up the exercise and imagine to do the motion exactly like a hip thrusts.

However, the only difference will be that you’ll decrease your range of motion.

Essentially, a glute bridge is the same as a hip thrust only you don’t lower your glutes as far down.

What this does is by decreasing the range of motion ever so slightly, you can keep the tension on your glutes through the entire movement.

Whereas when you lower your glutes down further during a regular hip thrust, the lower you get, the more you take the tension off of your glutes and put it onto your quads.

Tips to make hip thrusts and glute bridges even more effective

When I do hip thrusts and glute bridges, there are three big “cues” I use to make sure I’m maximizing glute engagement during these exercises.

Tip number 1: Foot placement

The first tip that I like to keep in mind is to place your feet so that your legs are bent at a 90% angle.

Tip number 2: Keep your back straight

Secondly, to keep your back straight through the entire movement. Arching your back while lowering is a common hip thrust mistake you want to avoid.

Tip number 3: Flexing your glutes

And finally, squeeze and flex your glutes specifically as you lower them, but throughout the entire movement. This will help you have the best mind to muscle connection and glute engagement.

If you do all of these, I guarantee you you’ll start feeling your hip thrusts in your glutes a thousand times better than you ever have.

Keeping these in mind during each set and rep will help you maximize your workout.

The second exercise on this list is front foot elevated lunges.

How to perform front-foot elevated lunges

In order to perform this exercise, you’ll need to have your front foot elevated off of the ground.

It doesn’t need to be high, as little as 4 inches off the ground is fine. You just need some elevation.

Then, you’ll stand on this platform and perform a lung by keeping your plant foot on the platform and sending the opposite foot behind you.

I prefer to do these on the Smith Machine to help keep me balanced while I add some weight.

Key tips to make front-foot elevated lunges extremely effective

The key elements of this exercise are the placement of your plant foot and the placement of the foot you’re sending back.

Your plant foot placement:

The first key tip for this exercise is that you want your plant foot to be placed facing slightly angled across your body. But planted directly in the center of your body.

For example, let’s say that your right foot is your plant foot for this set. You’d want to place your right foot slightly pointed left and planted directly in the center in front of your body.

Your opposite foot placement:

The second key tip is in the way you send your opposite foot back behind you.

For this example, since you’re using your right foot, you’re left foot would be the one you’re sending back.

What you want to do is you want to send your left foot behind you, but send it towards the right side of your body.

As you send your left foot back, pop your right hip out a little (but not too much) creating the biggest possible stretch on your right, upper glute.

I promise you if you apply these tips the next time you do front foot elevated lunges, your upper glutes will be on fire.

What makes this exercise essential to grow your upper glutes

The first thing that makes this exercise so great is that it’s a unilateral exercise.

Any unilateral glute exercise is great for targeting your upper glutes and any other harder to reach glute muscles.

The second thing is this exercise provides the exact conditions for your upper glutes to work.

Your upper glutes work in two situations:

First, when your glutes need to stabilize themselves.

And second, any exercise where you bend your leg and send it across your body.

Front foot elevated lunges combine these two situations perfectly making them essential for growing your upper glutes and creating that desired shelf.

Glute medius kickbacks

The third exercise on this list is the glute medius kickback.

As I’m sure you can tell by the name, glute medius kickbacks target your glute medius.

This makes these kickbacks an excellent exercise for growing your upper glutes and creating that shelf.

How to perform glute medius kickbacks

There are two different, very similar, variations of glute medius kickbacks that you can do. And I like both just about equally as much.

Step 1:

To begin both variations, you’re going to strap one of the cable strap attachments around your ankle with the cable lowered all the way to the bottom.

Step 2:

Now, this is where the variation comes in.

The next thing you’re going to do is stand with your plant foot (the foot not strapped to the machine), planted next to the cable.

You want to angle you’re foot so that it’s slightly less than perpendicular to the cable, shifted slightly more parallel. Think of making a V-shape between your plant foot and the cable.

The two ways that you can do this is either to have the cable coming in front of your body or going behind your body.

Variation 1: Placing your plant foot in front of the cable

For the first variation, you will place your plant foot in front of the cable. This would mean you step over the cable so that in runs in line behind your plant foot.

Variation 2: Placing your plant foot behind the cable

The second variation will be to place your plant foot behind the cable, meaning you don’t step over the cable.

This would mean that the line of the cable runs in front of your plant foot.

Both ways work, but as of now I find having the cable run behind my body to be a little more effective for targeting my glutes. However, it’s a personal preference.

The biggest pointers to make this exercise most effective

Pointer number 1: Don’t arch your back

This first biggest thing to keep in mind when performing glute medius kickbacks is to keep your back straight during the entire movement.

The reason for this is because arching your back will take the tension off your glutes and put it onto your lower back.

Making the exercise less effective for working your glutes.

Pointer number 2: Keep the weight controllable

Your upper glutes can be difficult to target and grow, especially if you’re trying to lift too much weight.

As a result, you want to make sure the weight is low enough where you can isolate your upper glutes and have these muscles be the only ones working.

Pointer number 3: Allow for a full range of motion

Another thing to keep in mind is to focus on allowing your upper glute muscle to fully stretch. You mainly want to do this when you’re bringing your foot forward.

To give you a better visual, think of the point in the exercise after you’ve kicked your leg all the way back and now you’re bringing your leg back forward again.

The key here is to bring your leg as far forward as you can to put your upper glutes in their longest position. Doing this will allow you to get the biggest stretch.

Pointer number 4: Don’t overextend your leg

Finally, the third most important thing to keep in mind when doing these is to not extend your leg too high.

Overextending your leg will cause your glute muscles to squeeze completely.

How to visualize proper kickback form

To visualize this better, think about proper squat form.

Sometimes, we see people who complete their squat, then fully stand up straight again and clench their glutes together.

Although the squeeze at the top might seem like it creates a more effective exercise, it doesn’t.

In fact, it actually worsens the exercise. Instead, it’s much better to not fully lockout your knees while doing squat reps. This will keep the tension on your glutes throughout the entire movement and every single rep.

The same goes for glute medius kickbacks. You want to avoid lifting your leg so high and squeezing your muscle at the top.

This will be counterproductive and will actually take the tension off of your glute.

Instead, lift your leg almost fully to the top and contract your muscle throughout the entire movement.

Doing this will allow you to feel the exercise so much better in your glutes.

Squats

The final exercise that makes this list are squats. I have to admit, squats are not one of my favorite glute exercises.

The first three on the other hand, I live by and always give me the best glute pump. Although I might not like squats that much, they are excellent for targeting and growing your glutes.

The main purpose of squats is to build the size of your glutes.

Unlike kickbacks and front foot elevated lunges, which are primarily to give your glutes the desired shape, squats are a great exercise to load a ton of weight and really build strength and size in your glutes.

I have a post on how to have perfect squat form, but basically there are just a few main things to keep in mind.

Biggest squat form pointers:

Number one: Don’t allow your knees to cave in

First, is to not let your knees cave in. Doing this will take the tension off of your muscles and put it onto your knees. Which is not something you want to do!

This would greatly increase your risk of injury and decrease your potential for gains.

Number two: Keep your back straight

Second is to keep your back straight throughout the entire movement. Don’t let your upper body fold forward like a chair!

Number three: Brace your core

And finally, the third thing is to brace your core during each rep.

This will allow you to stabilize yourself and help with keeping your back straight.

Takeaways

Glute growth is key in order to create strong, well-defined legs in the gym.

As a result, glute growth is a common goal among weightlifters. However, in order to achieve the best glute growth results, you need to be doing the best glute exercises.

By incorporating these four exercises into your glute workout routine, I guarantee you you’ll start seeing more glute growth than ever before!

More posts on women’s weightlifting:

The impact of your diet on your fitness results

How to set achievable, realistic goals in the gym

Here’s why weightlifting gets BETTER the more you do it