Your butt comprises three muscle groups termed the “glutes,” the largest muscle group in your body. These muscles are essential for daily lower body movements such as walking, sitting, and running. However, their appearance and size are what people are interested in improving. If you are not one for surgery, here are the best butt exercises to grow your glutes at home.
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It’s important to note that the butt/glute size is mainly determined by genetics, but there are things you can do to manipulate the size and shape. Before you decide you want to grow your butt, your nutrition must be on point. Protein is essential in building and maintaining your butt size. To find out how much protein you need, multiply your body weight by .08, and eat that amount of protein in grams daily. In addition, having the right tools and exercises can take your butt size to the next level.
Easy, inexpensive tools to grow your butt at home:
The butt exercises I’ve adopted through reading The Glute Lab by Bret Contreras, the “glute guy.” These exercises can be done in the comfort of your home with minimal equipment and are low impact. Besides training for aesthetics, your glutes can help improve low back pain, prevent pain and injury in the knees, and help with overall body composition.
Hip Thrust
Hip thrusts are a glute staple and can be done single-legged, banded, or with both legs. You can mix this butt exercise up for variability. This description is for using a bench:
- Line your shoulder blades against the edge of the bench
- Place your legs at shoulder width with your knees over your feet
- option to use a band above the knees or weight
- Move from your chest, raising your hips to the sky until it is at a tabletop position; keep your weight in your heels.
- Squeeze your glutes at the top with a slight pelvic tilt, and push your knees out; hips and shoulders should be in line.
- Return to the starting position.
- Repeat between 10x
Kickbacks
Standing
- Keep your torso upright or bent over
- Neutral spine
- Raise your leg behind you and squeeze at the top
- Keep the band above the knee and the knee slightly bent
- Repeat 10-15 times
Kickbacks are a butt exercise you can do in other variations, such as bending over on a bench to hit other glute areas. To do a bent-over kickback(donkey kickbacks):
Donkey Kickbacks
- Start on all fours with your hands directly under your shoulders and your knees under your hips. Your back should be flat, and your neck in line with your spine.
- Engage your core and keep your back flat as you lift your right leg off the ground, keeping your knee bent at a 90-degree angle. Your foot should be flexed.
- Keeping your right knee bent, lift your leg up and back behind you, squeezing your glutes at the movement’s top. Your foot should be pointing towards the ceiling.
- Lower your leg back to starting position, keeping your knee bent at a 90-degree angle. This completes one rep.
- Repeat for 10-15 times each leg.
Glute Bridge
- Lay on your back and keeping upper back to shoulders fixed on the ground
- Arms stay at the sides with hands facing down or in fists
- Keep your ribs down
- Place feet shoulder-width apart, with knees in line with feet
- Extend hips to the sky, squeezing the butt
- Push through heels, push knees out with shins vertical
- Repeat 10-20 times
Variations: Band above knees, elevated, weight on hips, single-legged
Frog Pumps
- Similar positioning to the glute bridge, but press the heels together and push from the outer edge of the feet.
- Keep the heels close to the butt
- Keep hips, shoulders, and knees in line
- Repeat 10-20 times
Seated Hip Abductions With Band
- Sit on the bench upright with legs at a 90-degree angle
- Position the feet facing forward or turned inward slightly
- Place the band above the knees, and drive the knees outward, placing tension on the band
- Return to starting and repeat 15-30 times
Variations: Standing, add to the end of an exercise, i.e., glute bridge with abduction
Squat Holds
- Keep a neutral spine
- Lean slightly forward
- Drop hips below knee and knees stay over toes
- Push through the heels and hold at the bottom for 30 seconds
- Drive to standing and repeat 10 times
Variations: Add a band above the knees or hug a weight at your chest
Reverse Lunge
- Begin the same way as a squat, except you will alternate legs stepping backward.
- Place hands at your hips, in front of the body, or at the sides
- Hips should be square and even
- Step backward, keeping your torso upright with the knee in line with the foot.
- Lower knee 1-2 inches off the ground
- Alternate for 10-20 reps
Variations: Elevated front foot, weights at the side or on back, toe elevated
Side-Lying Leg Raises
- Lay on your side with your shoulder and elbow on the floor
- Place the top arm on the ground in front of the chest for balance
- Bend the nonworking bottom leg
- Rotate the top leg internally, and raise the leg to the sky at your range of motion limit
- Return to the starting and repeat on the other side
- 10-15 times with or without a band.
Clam Shells
- The setup is similar to the side-lying raises but with legs bent at a 45-degree angle.
- Cross the feet to create a shell with your legs, then raise the top leg
- Fully extend the hips as you open your legs
- Return to starting and repeat on the other side 10-15 times
Hip Extensions
- Stay in a tabletop position with knees under hips and hands under shoulders.
- Keep a neutral spine.
- Kick your leg back, with the knees at a 90-degree angle
- Squeeze glutes at the top
- Switch sides and repeat 10-15 times
Variations: Banded, ankle weights, or with weight in between inner knee
These movements are 10 exercises that give you a simple workout that can easily be performed at home. I encourage you to add variety, heavier weight, and movement range for more robust programming. Combine these exercises in blocks to create a complete workout, or add 2-3 exercises to your daily workout for a good glute burn.
