6 Steps To Grow Your Glutes (in the gym or at home!)

Struggling to grow your glutes and don’t know where to start? These simple steps will walk you through the ins and outs of glute training and exactly what you need to do to grow your glutes.

As one of the largest muscles in your body, you’d be silly not to train it. However, strengthening the glutes and growing the glutes don’t always equal the same thing.

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How To Grow Your Glutes

Growing your glutes can be broken down into 7 steps:

1. Exercise selection
2. Activating the glutes
3. Variety of repetitions
4. Weights versus cardio
5. Eat for gains
6. Progress, progress, progress

Each step is an important key in growing the glutes.

Step 1: Exercise Selection

Though smaller glute exercises like abductions and kickbacks are necessary for well-rounded glutes, you want to make sure you’re including the big stuff.

The gluteal muscles like variety in exercises and a workout routine. So mix up the bigger butt exercises that target the gluteus maximus (and multiple muscle groups) and the smaller butt exercises that target the outer hips (glute medius and minimus).

The top glute exercises to include are:

• Hip thrusts
• Glute bridges
• Deficit lunges
• Bulgarian split squat
• Extended range abductions
• Sumo walks
• Resistance band kickbacks
• Reverse hyperextensions

Make the hip thrusts, bridges, lunges, and split squats the bulk of your glute-focused exercises add in the other exercises as accessory work. Check out these tips for the best hip thrust.

Hot tip: hip thrusts and glute bridges can be done with so many exercise variations. You have a bit of freedom to mix and match here (check out these glute bridge variations).

Need more guidance? Check out the Glute Training E-book. A 25-page book with the exact glute workouts I use with clients.

Step 2: How To Activate The Glutes

Before you can really gain muscle mass on your glutes you need to know how to engage them properly.

The fun thing about glutes is that, when activated, they actually change shape! You can both feel and see the contraction.

To activate your glutes:

1.    Come into the starting position for a glute bridge: lay on the floor with the knees bent and feet hip-width or slightly more apart and close to the bum.

2.    Relax, inhale, and squeeze your glutes as you lift your hips opening up the hip flexors. This is called hip extension. You should feel the engagement.

3.    Place your hands on your buttocks and you should physically feel and see the contraction. The glutes should feel tight. Keep your hands there and release your hips back down towards the floor. The glutes will feel relaxed and squishy.

Learn more about how to engage glutes in greater detail.

Step 3: Variety Of Repetitions

The glute muscles actually respond really well to variety in repetitions.

This means that for some of your bigger glute exercises (like hip thrusts that target the gluteus Maximus primarily) you can aim for lower repetitions like 5-8 reps. But for exercises like abductions, kickbacks, and hyperextensions, strive for higher reps. Think 15 to 30 repetitions.

Much of your repetition choice will revolve around the load (weight) you choose. The lighter the load the higher the reps.

You want a good variety of lower reps for tension and higher reps for metabolic stress (feeling that BURN!).

Step 4: Weights Over Cardio

For maximum glute gains you’re going to need to add some tension!

If you’re not into loading up a barbell for barbell hip thrusts, definitely invest in some dumbbells and resistance bands.

The glute muscles respond best to weight training (which means rest days too). Overdoing it on the cardio front will actually stall your muscle growth.

Aim to have a few of your bigger exercises like the hip thrusts, bridges, and lunges at heavier weights.

And remember it’s all relative. What’s heavy for me may not be heavy for you. Even on low reps, you want that last repetition to be hard.

Not into dumbbells? Resistance bands are a good way to get started with resistance training and glute training.

Step 5: Eat To Gain

The number one mistake people make when trying to grow their glutes is that they eat too little! Your muscles need fuel to grow. They need building blocks.

If you want a shapely peach, you can’t be living off 1200kcals a day. Especially if you’re lifting weights.

If your glute growth has stalled, check your calorie intake.

Step 6: Progress, Progress, Progress

To see continuous results you need to keep stimulating the muscles! This means that you always want to be challenging them.

You can learn more about how to increase the intensity of your glute exercises without adding weights.

This can be done by loading up more, adding pauses, changing reps etc. But know that every few weeks you want to make your workouts challenging in a new way.

Other Wicked Resources For Training Your Glutes

• Glute isolation exercises
• Best at home glute exercises
• Workout finishers for strong glutes
• How glutes help alleviate back pain
• Glutes exercises to help in pregnancy and postpartum
• The best glute activation exercises
• Glute training 101: everything you need to know
• The best fitness equipment for small spaces
• Progressive Glute Workouts
• The best dumbbell exercises for your booty