What’s the powerhouse of the body and the most well-liked muscle on Instagram? Ding, ding! In the event you guessed the glute muscles, you are correct. Nearly every lifter wants more muscle mass and strength gains there as they know it is going to make them look higher AND be stronger.
Who doesn’t want that?
And in case your answer was “everyone,” give yourself a pat on the back, since you’re now two for 2! But wanting to grow your glutes and successfully doing it are two various things. And, in case you’re counting on sources you see on Instagram and TikTok, it might probably be even tougher to search out high-quality information to optimize glute training.
That is why I put together this entire guide to elucidate every thing it is advisable to know to successfully construct your glute muscles. After you are done with this text, you will understand the glute anatomy and functions, one of the best exercises to construct your butt, and essential programming suggestions.
Table of Contents:
- Glutes Muscle Anatomy
- What Are The Functions Of The Glutes?
- What Forms of Exercises Train The Glutes?
- 12 Best Glute Exercises
- 6 Tricks to Optimize Muscle Growth
- Advantages of Constructing Glute Muscles
- Common Training Mistakes to Avoid
- 3 Reasons Why Your Glutes May Not Be Growing
- Programming Suggestions
- How Long Does It Take To Grow Your Glutes?
- FAQs
In the event you’ve been wanting to grow your glutes, this text is for you!
Glute Muscle Anatomy
The gluteal muscles are composed of three separate muscles that act together to manage the hips and thighs. Together, they will manipulate the hips and the thigh.
Let’s take a more in-depth take a look at each glute muscle.
Gluteus Maximus:
The gluteus maximus is one large solid piece of muscle and is definitely the largest of the three gluteal muscles. In actual fact, it is the strongest muscle within the human body!
Regardless that the gluteus maximus arises from the middle of the body, it stretches out under the gluteus medius because it attaches to the femur, making it the outermost gluteal muscle as well.
- Origin: Gluteal surface of ilium, lumbar fascia, sacrum, sacrotuberous ligament
- Insertion: Gluteal tuberosity of the femur and iliotibial tract
Gluteus Medius:
The glute medius is the second largest of the three glute muscles. It sits on the outermost a part of the pelvis BUT only on the pelvis. Compare this to the maximus, which stretches out and down onto the femur.
Nevertheless, since it does sit on the outermost a part of the femur, it’s a vital muscle for people to construct, especially women, for aesthetics. It plays a big role in constructing that nice “bump” on the side of the pelvis.
- Origin: Gluteal surface of ilium, under gluteus maximus
- Insertion: Greater trochanter of the femur
Gluteus Minimus:
With a reputation like minimus, you would probably guess that it is the smallest of the three muscles. In point of fact, the gluteus minimus is sort of identical to a smaller gluteus medius. Its insertions and origins are the identical, and it sits directly underneath the gluteus medius.
- Origin: Gluteal surface of ilium, under gluteus maximus
- Insertion: Greater trochanter of the femur
What Are The Functions Of The Glute Muscles?
We’re now going to go over a few of the basic functions of the glutes. As mentioned above, they ultimately play a task in nearly every movement of the hip. They even work with the hip flexors to offer stability.
Let’s dig in!
1) Hip Extension:
That is the first role of the glute muscles and is what most individuals consider once they train the glutes. The glutes’ principal role helps to drive the hips forward to increase the hip joint when flexed.
This can even occur when pulling the leg back, comparable to in running.
2) Hip Abduction:
Hip abduction occurs when the legs move straight out of the side of the body. This movement is not seen often in isolation in normal life but could also be seen during sporting events comparable to dribbling a ball and changing direction. Performing kicks are other times that is seen.
Hip abduction also plays an important role when balancing. In the event you lift a foot, your hips are going to need to naturally sag. To stop this from occurring, the medius fires to keep up straight hips. This is significant in long-distance runners as weak glutes are sometimes the explanation for hip and knee pain.
3) External Rotation:
Again, external rotation doesn’t occur a ton in real life, at the very least under a load. Nevertheless, if it does, you would like strong glutes!
External rotation occurs in case your leg is out straight after which turns outward so your toes also point outward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/z3kTF0jEdLs
What Types Of Exercises Train The Glutes?
Now that we all know the first function of the glutes, let us take a look at what variety of exercises work them well. I’ll go over a few of my favorites below, but understanding the kinds of exercises will enable you to compile a customized list of best glutes exercises.
1) All Hip Extension Movements:
Once I say hip extension movements, I would like to be very clear about what I mean. The glutes are awesome in that they’ll help the hips extend in either direction. Hip extension can involve one in all two actions OR each of the actions happening together.
Hip extension movements include:
- Pulling the torso back, comparable to in back extensions.
- Pulling the leg backward, like in the course of the pull phase of running.
- Pulling the hips forward, which occurs during hip thrusts.
After we do hip extensions, I generally like going heavy as this can be a stimulus rarely seen in real-life situations.
2) Lower Body Pushing Exercises:
You most likely know you train your glutes when performing back squats and leg presses, that are pushing exercises.
During these movements, you might be performing hip flexion and hip extension. In the event you take into consideration a squat, your hips are pushed back with a bend on the hips. While you push your body up, your glutes must still extend the hips.
For this reason it’s principally not possible to actually have a pushing leg day or pulling leg day as you train every thing with lower body compound exercises.
3) Hip Abduction:
Hip abduction exercises will primarily involve isolation exercises and goal the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus.
This may be glute isolation exercises comparable to clamshells or quadruped hip abduction.
4) Stabilization Exercises:
Stabilization can mean anything that requires you to fireside your glutes to keep up proper posture. As mentioned above, the glutes play an instrumental role in keeping the hips prolonged while standing.
For that reason, any exercise you’ve pulled would require glute activation to stabilize your hips. That is one reason I like carries, especially front carries.
5) Single Leg Exercises:
Single-leg exercises fall under the identical biomechanics because the stabilization exercises but will goal the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus. As mentioned above, in real-life application, the first job of the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus is not to kick your leg out to the side but slightly stabilize the body on one foot.
Each time you are taking one foot off the bottom, your gluteus medius must fire to maintain your hips level and forestall sagging. We are able to make the most of this movement and balance on one leg for an prolonged period. Then, to fireside all the muscles, we will perform various movements on that one balancing leg.
For this reason exercises like the single-leg Romanian deadlift are so awesome.
6) Hip Hyperextension:
Hip hyperextension is the last variety of exercise that may be used to hit the glutes. Hyperextension is once you move your hips forward past being prolonged.
An example of that is when pulling your leg backward so far as it might probably go. Once it gets past being straight down, it moves into hyperextension.
The 12 Best Glute Exercises to Construct Your Glutes
We’ll now go over a few of my favorite glute exercises. In my skilled opinion, all of those are great for constructing muscle and deserve a spot in your workout split.
1) Barbell Hip Thrusts:
If I had to choose only one movement to place in your glute exercise program, it will be the barbell hip thrust. The barbell hip thrust’s primary movement is hip extension.
What makes barbell hip thrusts so awesome is that you just place the load directly in your hip joint. In other words, no other muscle is acting as a primary mover.
After all, the hamstrings are involved, and your core has to kick in to offer stability. Nevertheless, these are smaller secondary muscles. In actual fact, out of all isolation exercises, this permits the heaviest weight training! In the event you want powerful glutes, you MUST perform hip thrusts.
And for those of you who do not have a bench, try the glute bridge as an alternative.
2) Back Squats:
Back squats are one other must. While these don’t isolate the glutes nearly as much because the hip thrust, you may still place an enormous load on the back. Pressing up requires hip extension, which is why you regularly hear cues comparable to, “Drive your hips forward” and “Squeeze your glutes!”
So where the back squat lacks in isolation, it makes up for in load. The back squat is the second largest barbell lift for most individuals, meaning you may’t really put a much greater load on the glute muscles. Remember, we’d like a heavy load to get your glutes working!
3) Leg Press:
The leg press is one other great option because it means that you can load your glutes loads. Once you set the barbell down, the leg press might be your biggest glute lift.
What makes the leg press a good more impressive exercise for glute training is you may alter your foot placement to alter muscle activation. To get essentially the most out of your glute training with a leg press, use a foot placement that is high together with your feet barely wider.
When the feet are placed high, the knees bend less, and your quads are used less. This moves a better percentage of the load onto the glutes.
You possibly can learn more about this in our article that discusses 7 Leg Press Foot Placements.
4) Deadlift:
The deadlift is absolutely the heaviest barbell movement there may be. It also happens to operate predominately as a hip extension movement. When put next with other exercises, there is maybe nowhere near as much variance in an individual’s biomechanics as there may be with the deadlift.
That is resulting from the various lengths of an individual’s torso, legs, and arms. Due to this fact, this could cause some differences in muscle activation in several people, but no matter how your body is built, this movement will still work your glutes.
5) Romanian Deadlift:
The Romanian deadlift is not actually a deadlift, because the bar never even touches the ground, let alone starts from it. The RDL is an awesome exercise because it is a variety of hip thrust and allows a greater mind-muscle connection.
When you still must take into consideration this (it doesn’t come 100% naturally), most individuals can give attention to their glutes and permit tension to construct.
6) Single-Leg Deadlift:
The only-leg deadlift is awesome because it uses each hip extension and one foot’s instability. In consequence, your glutes will likely be firing like crazy without using any load!
Then, once you pick up a loaded barbell or pair of dumbbells, you may feel your glutes growing!
7) Step Ups:
Step-ups make the most of the role of the glutes in hip extension to make it among the finest butt exercises you may do.
Using a better box would require more work from the glutes, resulting in more muscle growth and improving muscular strength. Nevertheless, you do not need to try so high that it’s essential to use your other leg to push off an excessive amount of.
Alternatively, you may all the time use the eccentric portion of the exercise and lower yourself down slowly. This can train your glutes while taking away any contribution from the opposite leg. Use a load if needed but raise the box height first in case you’re able.
8) Farmer’s Carry:
Farmer carries aren’t often listed on glute exercises, but in case you desire a set of glutes which might be strong and functional, farmer carries are where it’s at. Above, I went over how walking demands loads out of your glutes to assist stabilize the hips and body. Now take into consideration what would occur once you’re carrying 1-2X your body weight!
While the farmer’s walk has loads of other amazing advantages, comparable to working multiple muscle groups, being an awesome glute exercise is just yet one more reason to begin doing it. In the event you want an enormous butt, stronger glutes, or simply a stronger body, start doing farmer’s carries.
9) Front Carry:
Front carries are one other carry to work the glute muscles functionally. Carrying the load in front will cause your torso to lean forward. And that is where your glutes come into play, as engaging your glutes will keep your torso centered.
Performing a dumbbell front carry or sandbag carries will get you the activation you are on the lookout for. The Zercher carry using a barbell can be an amazing front carry option.
10) Quadruped Hyper Extension Kick-Up (Donkey Kicks):
That is one in all those “girly” exercises that scare dudes away. Nevertheless, if I’m being honest, any lady performing these likely has some exceptionally well-developed glutes. Dr. Bret Contreas, the Glute Doctor, also recommends them if that makes you’re feeling higher about doing them.
Plus, after you employ these for some time, you will not need an excuse or be convinced to try one. These use hyperextension to isolate your glute muscles, and you may definitely feel it.
11) Cable Hip Abduction:
Cable hip abduction is a classic exercise to hit the gluteus medius and out of doors of your hips. They’re easy to perform, easy to load, and straightforward to use progressive overload.
Plus, they’ll easily isolate your outer glutes for an awesome exercise and a shapely bum.
12) Bulgarian Split Squat:
Bulgarian split squats suck, but they work well. At the underside of the movement, they almost appear like a step-up motion. Regardless, in case you want great glutes, often Bulgarian split squats.
How To Grow Your Glutes: 6 Suggestions To Optimize Muscle Growth
With a view to stimulate growth and glute growth, there are some practices which you can incorporate into your training for optimization. In the event you’re attempting to grow your glutes, remember to incorporate these variables.
1) Use Heavy Loads:
Because the glutes are the strongest muscle within the human body, it is smart to coach them heavily.
And by heavy, I mean use loads which might be 85-95% of your 1RM. Heavy loads will improve your muscular strength.
2) Use Light Loads & Burn Out Sets:
Going heavy is great, but depending in your genetics, your glute muscles is likely to be predominantly slow-twitch dominated. Interestingly, some research has even found that the gluteus maximus comprises 62% slow-twitch muscle fibers!
This is smart, though, as we consider the glutes’ principal activity, which is walking. Each time we take a step, we use our glutes. We engage our glutes each time we adjust our hips or pelvis. The glutes being highly immune to fatigue ensures they will sustain normal activities all day.
That said, that is one in all the explanations I like to do ultra-high reps. By ultra-high reps, I mean using a rep scheme of 3X20 and even 2X50, which is within the muscular endurance range. I do not do these often, but they kick my ass (pun intended) each time I do.
3) Use EMOMs & Other Anaerobic Endurance:
I also love using forms of training that test your anaerobic endurance. For instance, EMOMs are an amazing option. These assist you to use heavy loads but in an endurance state by not allowing full recovery in between sets.
Performing some heavy hip thrusts or back squats (with reps 3-5) is brutal (in one of the best ways) for our butts.
4) Use A Variety Of Movements:
I definitely have my favorite exercises that needs to be present in principally every training session. Nevertheless, as I went over above, the glutes are chargeable for a ton of various movements.
Hip extension, hyperextension, stabilization – there’s loads. Due to this fact, the final word glute training plan goes to have quite a lot of different movements in it. Again, keep on with a few of your primary glutes exercises. Nevertheless, for a few of the smaller accessory work, go crazy together with your variety.
5) Hit The Gym Ceaselessly:
While you will want to listen to your recovery, I’d suggest attempting to hit the gym 3 times per week to get your glutes growing.
Do not forget that you might be always training your glutes each day in normal life. With this in mind, hitting it hard 3 times per week is likely to be optimal in case you’re focused on glute growth.
To be clear, this doesn’t suggest squats 3 times per week. Nevertheless, you would use your big compound exercises twice per week after which keep on with 2-3 smaller isolation exercises a third time in the course of the week. Again, monitor how your body responds, but your butt may simply need more butt exercises.
6) Progressive Overload Still Applies:
You will need to apply progressive overload on your glutes to grow. That is the rationale why every powerlifter you already know has huge glutes.
Be mindful these athletes have little care about training for aesthetics. Nevertheless, all of them have huge glutes! Why is that this? Because they’re masters of progressive overload and train in the massive compound exercises: squats and deadlifts.
In the event you want greater glutes, it is advisable to place a greater load on them. The one approach to do that is in case you apply progressive overload in a structured fashion.
Advantages of Constructing Glute Muscles
Your glutes are essentially the most powerful muscles within the human body. They need this strength resulting from their multiple roles in body movement. In point of fact, many of the movements you do depend on your glutes in some fashion.
As well as, the glutes help to support proper biomechanics. Not training them will end in a domino effect of recurring problems. Listed here are the highest reasons it is advisable to train your glutes.
- Improve Performance: Your glutes are the workhorse of the body and are chargeable for generating power for running, sprinting, jumping, and even providing a stable base for upper body movements1. While you strengthen your glutes, you might be strengthening your body’s engine.
- Increase Lower Body Strength: Apart from providing the force required for momentum, your glutes will provide pure strength. Because they’re so large, strengthening the glutes can have far-reaching effects and help bring up other areas of strength as well. Strengthen your glutes and your lower body.
- Improve Biomechanics & Posture: As your glutes are chargeable for hip extension, they play a primary role in providing correct posture. It is because they will keep the torso pulled back and upright when walking. In the event you give it some thought, the hip is a hinge, and gravity wants to tug the upper body down naturally. This does not occur resulting from the glutes! As well as, your gluteus medius keeps your hips stable and prevents them from sagging while on one leg, comparable to when walking.
- Decrease Injury: As mentioned above, the glutes play several significant roles within the human body. All the pieces from proper biomechanics to posture and performance. In consequence, it needs to be of little surprise to listen to that quite a lot of bad can occur if you’ve weak glutes. All the pieces from back pain, knee pain, feet pain, and even neck pain can possibly be brought on by weak glutes.
Common Glute-Training Mistakes to Avoid
Training the glutes needs to be easy. Nevertheless, there are some common mistakes quite a lot of people make.
- Training Too Heavy: To be very clear, I like going heavy. Nevertheless, going just a couple of kilos an excessive amount of can drastically change the standard of your reps. Perhaps you employ an excessive amount of weight and might’t perform the movement properly. Or they focus a lot on getting the load up that they lose all connection. Push yourself but push appropriately.
- Not Using Full Range Of Motion: The glutes are chargeable for the extension of the hips. After we take a look at the locomotion of the human body, we notice that the hips are almost all the time fully prolonged. Nevertheless, once you see some people do barbell hip thrusts, they fall in need of full extension. Don’t make this error!
- Not Hitting Every Function: The glutes are chargeable for a bunch of various functions. To maximise their training, it’s best to then train every movement pattern. This includes hip extension, hip hyperextension, hip abduction, and external rotation.
3 Reasons Why Your Glutes May Not Be Growing
Regardless that you could be going to the gym and training hard, you could notice your glutes still aren’t growing. Listed here are the highest reasons this will likely be.
1) You are Not Eating Enough.
Your body needs fuel to grow. Give it some thought. An even bigger person needs more calories simply to support their extra weight. Due to this fact, how will you expect to construct muscle by eating the identical amount? You will need to eat to grow. Attempt to be a 300-500 caloric surplus to provide the additional energy needed.
Follow our 7 Day Meal Plan For Muscle Gain to get those glutes growing!
2) You Aren’t Using Progressive Overload.
You may think that you will the gym and training hard. And also you is likely to be doing that! Nevertheless, are you truly putting more weight in your barbell?
You see, you may go to the gym and train hard. Work up a superb sweat and even feel some muscle soreness. Nevertheless, being drained and sore doesn’t equate to growth. You will need to put more weight on the bar to make your muscles grow.
3) You are Doing Too Much Work.
Doing an excessive amount of work generally is a detriment to your muscle growth. To grow, your muscles need to interrupt down from stress after which recuperate. Once they recuperate, they’ll rebuild slightly bit greater and stronger.
Nevertheless, once you train an excessive amount of, you never give muscle recovery a probability to occur, so that they’re always being broken down. Ease up in your glute training in case you’re going hard with no results.
Programming Suggestions For How To Grow Glutes Fast
Your glutes needs to be trained at the very least twice per week. That is the overall advice for any muscle because it capitalizes on the muscle recovery process. After a workout, it takes 2-3 days on your muscle to totally recuperate. After this time, your muscles are able to train again.
By training twice per week, the muscle is in a perpetual cycle of coaching and recovery. That said, you could find it useful to coach the glutes for an additional third weekly session. Nevertheless, this needs to be done for a brief duration (4-6 week blocks or every other week).
Your glutes are a pulling muscle, so that they will likely be trained either on lower body days or pulling days. While you program your exercises, all the time start together with your major compound lifts. These are movements comparable to the hip thrust and squat. From here, work your approach to your accessory and isolation exercises.
How Long Does It Take to Grow Your Glutes?
That is not possible to definitively say! In point of fact, growing your glutes is a non-stop process and can more than likely never be accomplished.
So, don’t be concerned about time frames. Give attention to being consistent within the gym and kitchen, and you will notice results.
FAQs
Lingering grow your glutes questions? Here’s every thing else it is advisable to know!
What foods grow your butt?
Protein and carbs! Quality protein foods are going to provide the amino acids required to repair and construct your muscles. Carbs will supply the energy and glucose required to fuel and fill your muscles. As well as, studies are starting to discover a task by which carbs directly influence muscle protein synthesis.
Why are glutes so hard to grow?
One reason the glutes may be so hard to grow is that they already see quite a lot of stimuli. Do not forget that the glutes are all the time working, meaning it is advisable to train with intensity to create enough stress for growth.
How much should I eat to grow my glutes?
No matter what muscle you would like to grow, it is advisable to eat the identical amount of food, which is 300-500 calories above your TDEE (Total Day by day Energy Expenditure), also generally known as your baseline. That is enough extra energy to assist construct your muscles, yet it’s not an excessive amount of where you are going to gain quite a lot of fat.
How long does it take to grow glutes?
This query is not possible to reply resulting from the myriad of variables at play. That said, if you’ve never really focused on training your glutes before, I estimate that at the very least 4-6 weeks are needed to see results.
Grow Your Glutes: Final Takeaways
In the event you’ve asked yourself methods to grow glutes, know that glute growth is definitely pretty easy. Like most other muscle growth, all it takes is a few knowledge of the best way the muscle functions and a few specificity in your training.
Be mindful that you’ve probably already been giving the glutes quite a lot of activation, but you are just not going hard enough. Due to this fact, use variety in your glute training, and remember to coach them often!
