9 Killer Glute Exercises for a Great Butt

By: Amber George

Bridge with Hip Abduction

Wrap a band around your legs and pull it up to right above your knees, right at the curve of your quad muscle. Lie flat on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat. Raise your butt up off of the floor and hold that position while pressing your legs out against the band. Repeat this motion for between 8-15 reps (depending on your level of fitness).

Banded Step Back

Wrap the band around your ankles and split your feet as pictured below using the front foot as your ‘anchor’. Then step backwards onto your toe while keeping your leg straight. Repeat for 8-15 reps.

Quadruped Kickbacks

With the band still wrapped around your ankles, drop down to all fours and raise your foot towards the ceiling, keeping the bottom of your foot towards the ceiling as well. Repeat for 8-15 reps.

Plank Toe Taps

Band is still around your ankles! Come up into a plank position and step your foot out then back to center, then the other foot out and back to center. Keep your core in nice and tight. Repeat for 8-15 reps.

Quad Leg Raise (Fire hydrant)

Pull the band back up to above your knees and put it at the base of your quad. Raise your leg out with the knee bent, much like a dog going pee on a fire hydrant then back down. These are killer! Start with 8 reps for several sets then work your way up. You will feel these later!

Reverse Hyper

Lie on your belly on a bench and hold onto the bench with your hands. Raise your legs and put your heels together. Then, while pressing your heels together, raise your legs up and towards the ceiling and back down. Pressing your heels together and keeping your core engaged is vital to properly doing this movement! Repeat for 8-15 reps.

Weighted Frogs

Lie on your back, bend your knees and put the bottoms of your feet together. Place a heavier weight on your hips, right below your belly button. Typically I will place the weight between my hip bones. Engage your glutes and lift up off of the ground then lower back down. Repeat for 8-15 reps.

Cable Hip Abduction

Head over to the cable machine in your gym and there should be a strap that is Velcro that will hook onto the bottom part of the cable and wrap around your ankle (below pic for reference). Stand with the side of your feet parallel to the cable machine. Plant the foot closest to the machine as your base foot. Engage your core and if you’d like, for balance, reach out and hold onto the pole of the cable machine. Then, with a slightly bent knee, raise your leg out to the side and back down.

Cable Hip Extension

Facing the cable machine, hold onto the poles and lean forward just a little bit. Plant one of your feet as the anchor foot and raise your leg backward. I typically will turn my toe out just a little bit (below pic for reference) as it engages my glute muscles just a bit more, then lower back to the ground. Repeat for 8-15 reps.

Additional Tips

Don’t forget to do both legs. If you’re doing these exercises and you’re on one that you do one leg at a time, don’t forget to do the same reps on the other leg!

I don’t recommend doing all of these at once. Your butt will hate you. Take 2-4 of them and sprinkle them into your current workout routine.

Start with the 8 reps and several rounds, then work your way up in reps with the same weight of band. Once you reach 15 reps or so with that weight of band, then move up in weight in band and go back to 8 reps.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Amber George is the founder, certified trainer and coach at Amber George Fitness and Lifestyle®. Amber has made it her mission to remove the guesswork for fitness and healthy living by empowering overwhelmed mothers with quality coaching services and common sense education through her website: coachambergeorge.com Coach Amber’s website is packed with over 200 blog posts on fitness, healthy eating, and how to stop being obsessed with the scale.