Strengthen your glutes and lower body with this booty building workout: the 6 BEST glute exercises at home! The ultimate butt workout for women, targeting the glute muscles from all angles with squats, lunges, step-ups and glute bridges.
It’s no secret that I love a solid, strength training leg workout. One of the most common questions I get is how to build strong glutes.
The key to building strong glute muscles at home is a combination of compound lower body strength exercises and booty-burning glute isolation exercises.
The six glute exercises found in this butt workout for women target all three muscles in the glutes: the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus.
Training your glutes not only strengthens and shapes the glute muscles, but also can reduce lower back pain and improve hip/pelvic stability.
Build strong glutes at home with the six best booty building exercises. This isolation-style glute workout for women can be done at home or at the gym.
Add dumbbell leg workouts like this one to your home training program 1-2 times a week to build muscle mass and increase endurance.
Medium set of dumbbells. I suggest anywhere from 8-25 lbs. I used 15-20 lb dumbbells for this butt workout. Option to add a mini loop resistance band (discount code: NML) and a box or step.
Follow along with the guided Booty Building Workout for Women on YouTube, led by certified personal trainer, Lindsey Bomgren.
Your Workout Looks Like This:
Note: we re-filmed this glute workout to improve video and sound quality (and changed up some of the moves). You can find the original Glute Workout for Women on YouTube here if you’d like to compare them.
Targets: Glutes, quads and hamstrings.
The gluteus maximus is not only the largest muscle in the glutes, but also the largest muscle in the body. Squats mainly target the gluteus maximus, or lower glutes.
Modification: Perform squats to a box or bench, lowering your hips to tap the bench before returning to standing.
Targets: All three parts of the glutes — the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus.
Modification: Perform a reverse lunge and knee drive rather than step ups.
Targets: The posterior chain or backside of the body. Specifically targeting the hamstrings, glutes, hips, calves, lower back and core. The RDL engages more of the glutes than a straight leg deadlift.
The Romanian Deadlift (or RDL) differs from a conventional straight leg deadlift based on where the movement starts. Conventional deadlifts start with a barbell on the ground, which is pulled upwards. RDLs start with dumbbells at your thighs, which are then moved down towards the ground.
Targets: Legs, glutes, quads, hamstrings, hips and core.
This single leg exercise will challenge your balance and has been named one of the best exercises to build glute strength.
Modification: Perform a standard reverse lunge or split squat, keeping your back foot on the ground rather than elevating it on a chair.
Targets: Glutes, hamstrings and core.
Modification: Perform a staggered deadlift, keeping both knees bent slightly, 80% of your weight in your front heel and 20% in your back toe.
Targets: Glutes (both the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius), hamstrings and hip adductors.
Modification: Perform glute bridges from the floor.
When you think about strengthening your glutes, you probably think about deadlifts and hip thrusts with a heavy barbell. However, you can achieve strong glutes at home with just a set of dumbbells by increasing reps and focusing on glute activation during each move.
The best glute exercises activate all three parts of the butt — the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus (the lower, upper and side glutes). Some of the best glute exercises include weighted step-ups and dumbbell glute bridges or barbell hip thrusts.
Muscular hypertrophy, or muscle growth, is reached through a combination of load (or weight) and volume (or reps performed). In order to grow your glutes, you need to progressively overload the muscle by increasing load or volume over multiple weeks.
While strength training is the most effective way to build the glute muscles, if you don’t have weights available you can strengthen the glutes using just your bodyweight or resistance bands.
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Are the reps per side or total?
So – 20 per leg, or 10 each leg?
Hi Kristen! Great question, sorry I should have been more clear — it’s reps per side; so 20 per leg. Thanks for checking out the workout and I hope you enjoy this booty burner! xo-Lindsey