10 essential exercises for men to build their glutes

Not only do strong glutes look great, but they also provide many benefits as one of the most powerful muscle groups in your body. Your glutes assist with activities like walking, climbing stairs, sprinting, jumping, and squatting. Strong glutes can even help reduce lower back pain.

While going through physical therapy, strengthening my glutes helped me simply walk up the stairs again in the rehabilitation center, squat down, and perform other daily functional tasks and activities. My favorite glute exercise that helped the most through physical therapy is the humble (and not to be underestimated) glute bridge. 

There are so many more exercises to choose from than just back squats, glute bridges, and the traditional deadlift. Strengthening your glutes with the right exercises can improve athletic performance and overall movement efficiency. Ready to get started? Keep reading for the best glute exercises for men, the benefits, FAQs, how to program your workout, and more.

The 10 essential glute exercises for men

Here are the best exercises to sculpt and strengthen that derriere.

Barbell back squats

Barbell back squats are one of the most effective ways to load your glutes with high resistance for muscle growth. For safety, make sure you understand the proper form or ask a trainer at your gym to instruct you. If you’re not comfortable using a barbell, you can use dumbbells.

Equipment: Barbell and weights or dumbbells

Execution:

1. Stand at a squat rack with the barbell positioned along with your upper traps. Make sure your feet are slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, your toes are pointing forward, your core is engaged, and your chest is up and proud.
2. Inhale while you bend your knees and sit your hips backward as if reaching your butt back to sit in a chair. Keep your back straight and chest up.
3. Lower your body until your thighs are parallel to the floor and your knees are bent at about 90 degrees. Your knees shouldn’t be extending forward beyond your toes.
4. Exhale, pressing through your heels to return to stand back up.
5. Complete 8-10 reps.

Walking single-leg Romanian deadlifts

Walking single-leg Romanian deadlifts activates your entire posterior chain, so it’s an excellent choice for developing your glutes and hamstrings. Focus on engaging your glutes to help maintain your balance and drive the motion.

Equipment: Dumbbells or kettlebells

Execution:

1. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, chest up and proud, and arms at your sides while holding a dumbbell or kettlebell in each hand.
2. Engage your core and glutes,  then take a step forward with your left leg.
3. Load into that leg by bending your left knee (the one on the standing/support leg) about 20 degrees to activate your glutes while you lift your right leg off the ground.
4. Hinge from your hips to tilt your torso toward the floor, keeping your gaze down to prevent hyperextending your neck. Simultaneously, reach your right hand with the weight down towards your left foot until you feel enough of a stretch in the hamstrings of your supporting leg. Your right leg should extend behind you as a counterbalance, and your torso should be parallel to the floor.
5. Contract your glutes to stand back up as you take the next step forward.
6. Complete 12 steps per side.

Medicine ball single-leg bridges

Bridges are one of the most classic glute exercises. This variation is more challenging and requires greater glute activation.

Equipment: Medicine ball

Execution:

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent, one foot flat on the floor, and one foot atop a medicine ball. Cross your arms over your chest.
2. Lift one foot off the floor so you’re only pressing through the medicine ball foot.
3. Squeeze your glutes to lift your hips up until they’re in line with your body from your knees to your head.
4. Hold and squeeze for one breath, then slowly lower.
5. Repeat 15 times and then switch sides.

Weighted step-ups

Step-ups are one of the best lower-body strengthening exercises that deserves a spot in your leg workout lineup. If you’re looking to gain muscle mass and size, go heavy on the weights and drop the reps. Avoid going too heavy at first until you’ve mastered your technique. You can incorporate progressive overload to increase the weight gradually over time as you get stronger.

Equipment: Dumbbells and a plyometric box, step, or bench

Execution:

1. Stand facing a plyometric box, bench, or step that’s roughly knee height or slightly lower. Hold a relatively heavy dumbbell in each hand with your arms down at your sides.
2. Engage your core and glutes while you step up onto the box with your right foot, pressing through your heel to lift your body.
3. Step your left leg up onto the box as well so that you’re standing on top of the box with both feet.
4. Step back down backward with your right foot first and then your left foot.
5. Continue leading with the right foot for 8-10 reps, then switch sides.

Shuffles

This move targets all three glute muscles and your quad muscles at the front of your thighs. If you don’t have access to a gym, you can do this move at home or outside. Stay as low as possible throughout the movement to engage your entire lower body.

Equipment: Strong loop resistance band

Execution:

1. Place a resistance loop band around your ankles.
2. Get into a good squat position with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Make sure your core is engaged, your chest is up, your shoulders are back, your hands are on your hips, and your knees are bent to about 90 degrees.
3. Staying down in your squat position, step your right foot outward toward the right as far as you can.
4. Follow the left foot over, but maintain tension on the band by keeping a good distance between your two feet.
5. Walk to the one side with 30 steps in total, striding as long as you can with each step and staying low to keep your quads engaged.
6. Return by facing the same way and leading with the left leg.

Cable leg extensions

One of the primary functions of your glutes is to extend your leg, and this glute exercise is one of the best ways to target that function. You can perform it at home with a strong resistance band.

Equipment: Cable machine or resistance band anchored low to the ground.

Execution:

1. Attach the cable or resistance band to one ankle by using an ankle cuff.
2. Face the upright post of the cable machine and hold on lightly for balance.
3. Allow a slight bend in your stabilizing knee while lifting your leg with the ankle cuff and extending it directly behind your body, reaching back as far as you can.
4. Squeeze your glute and hold this position for a second before returning it back to the starting position.
5. Complete 12 reps before switching sides.

Trap bar deadlifts

You can use a standard barbell for deadlifts, but a trap bar or hex bar allows you to use a neutral grip, which relieves stress on your upper body and allows you to lift more weight. The more weight you’re able to lift, the greater the load on your glutes, which better stimulates them to get bigger and stronger.

Equipment: Trap bar and weights

Execution:

1. Stand inside the loaded trap bar with your feet hip-width apart and your toes pointing forward.
2. Brace your core as you squat down and grasp the handles on either side of the trap bar.
3. Fire your glutes and hamstrings to extend your hips and knees to stand upright, keeping your back straight.
4. Slowly lower the bar back to the floor by sitting your hips back.
5. Complete 8-10 reps.

Single-leg barbell hip thrusts

This thrust exercise is a superior way to load your glutes and develop power and size. You can use dumbbells at home if you don’t have a barbell.

Equipment: Barbell or dumbbell

Execution:

1. Place your shoulder blades on the long side of a bench with your body bridging off the side so that your knees are bent 90 degrees, and your feet are hip-width apart and flat on the floor. Engage your core and glutes, and try to keep your hips up in a tabletop position.
2. Hold the barbell across your hips.
3. Lift one foot off the ground so that you’re only pressing through one foot.
4. Raise and lower your hips toward the floor, reaching the top position where your thighs are parallel to the ground for each rep.
5. Complete 10 controlled reps per set.

Deficit reverse lunges

Lunges are among the elite moves for strengthening your entire lower body, including your glutes. This variation requires more glute activation, plus you can do it at home with dumbbells and a standard step.

Equipment: Step or platform and dumbbells

Execution:

1. Stand on a step or platform with a dumbbell in each hand.
2. Engage your core as you step one foot back off the step and drop into a deep lunge. Your front knee should be aligned with your toe, and your back knee should almost touch the ground.
3. Your torso should be tilted forward about 20 degrees, hinging from your hips. Try to maintain a straight back.
4. Push through your heel on the step to return to the starting position.
5. Complete 30 reps, alternating sides.

Kettlebell swings

Kettlebell swings are a fun, dynamic, total-body move. Though it looks like an upper-body exercise, the true power of the swing should come from your hips and glutes.

Equipment: Kettlebell

Execution:

1. Stand tall with your feet about 10 inches wider than hip-width apart, gripping the handle of a moderately heavy kettlebell with both hands. Your arms should be long so the kettlebell is hanging down in front of your body.
2. Allow a soft bend in your knees, but keep your heels planted.
3. Engage your core and glutes while you press through your heels and explode through your hips to drive the kettlebell upward until it’s roughly chest height and your arms are fully extended.
4. Control the kettlebell as it descends, loading your glutes. It should swing backward behind your legs somewhat.
5. At the end of the arc of the swing, pop your hips forward to drive the kettlebell back up to chest height.
6. Complete 15 reps.

Additional glute-building exercises to try

Fitness buffs like Jeremy Ethier swear by the three elite glute-growing moves: hip thrusts, Bulgarian split squats, and good old-fashioned barbell back squats. You can add weights to many of these glute exercises once you’ve perfected your form and become familiar with the movement. 

Build those buns and switch up your routine with some of these effective glute exercises:

• The goblet squat
• Lateral lunge
• Bulgarian split squat 
• Split squat
• Wall sit
• Box squat
• Sumo deadlift
• Good morning
• Dumbbell frog press
• Curtsy lunge
• Side-lying clamshell
• Side-lying hip raise
• Jump squat
• Landmine squat

What are your glute muscles?

The best glute exercises develop strength and size in one or more primary glute muscles: the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus. The three gluteal muscles work together in synergy to extend your leg, stabilize your pelvis and hips, and abduct and rotate your legs. 

Your gluteus maximus is the largest of your three glute muscles that spans across your hip bones, attaches to the back of your pelvic bones, and runs down to the top of your thigh bones. This muscle gives you a lot of the shape in your butt. The gluteus medius is the second largest muscle that’s located on the outer side of your hips, partially covered by your gluteus maximus. Your gluteus minimus is the smallest muscle that sits underneath the others and toward the side of your hips under the gluteus medius.

Your lower back muscles, obliques, abdominal muscles, and glutes all work together, so if you want a strong core, it’s also important that you don’t neglect those glutes.

How to warm up your glutes

Most fitness professionals recommend at least a few minutes of stretching and warming up. Adding a short warm-up to your workout routine starts to get those muscles moving and your heart pumping, increasing circulation and blood flow. If you sit most of your day, your glutes can become inactive, so it’s a good idea to start with moves like donkey kicks, lunges, and forward folds to begin stretching and moving your glutes and muscles in your legs.

You can choose from several glute stretches, such as the seated glute stretch, pigeon pose, lying knee to chest, seated spinal twist, and the figure-four stretch. 

What are the benefits of glute exercises for men?

Other than the aesthetics of a well-defined, chiseled booty, here are some of the many benefits of glute exercises:

• Reduce back pain: Strengthening your glutes with the right glute exercises helps support the muscles in your lower back, and researchers have found that it could lower chronic back pain.
• Improve your posture: Building your glutes also strengthens and supports the muscles in your lower back, which can help you stop slouching.
• Reduce knee pain: Strong glutes help stabilize your whole lower body, which can reduce the force and stress on your knee joints, lessening the risk of knee pain and injury.
• Avoid dead butt syndrome: Dead butt syndrome or glute amnesia involves weakened gluteal muscles that are ‘switched off’ and aren’t firing as efficiently as they should be. Strengthening these muscles helps prevent dead butt syndrome.
• Improve your overall functional fitness: Your glutes help you stand up from your desk, walk up the stairs, and so much more.
• Improve your balance.
• Sprint faster: Researchers found that a larger gluteus maximus amplified sprint speed and performance. Researchers also found that a loaded hip-thrust protocol improved the acceleration and sprint performance of handball players.

How to program your glute workouts

You don’t have to get through every exercise and push yourself to the point of exhaustion to see results. Most fitness professionals recommend mixing up your routine with different exercises to get the best results. Start with just four or five different exercises, and once you’ve mastered those, you can consider other moves.

Aim for 2 to  5 sets of 8-15 reps, depending on your fitness level and your goals. Rest for 60 seconds in between sets.

FAQs

How long should a glute workout be?

Glute workouts vary, but they typically last between 20 and 30 minutes, depending on how much you’re focusing on the glutes and the exercises you choose.

Can you do glute exercises every day?

If you stick to two or three glute-building sessions every week, you should see results over time. While you can work your glutes every day, it’s not usually recommended and can lead to overtraining and burnout. It’s best to include rest days to give your muscles sufficient time to repair and recover.

How can you increase buttocks size for a male?

Growing your glutes requires staying dedicated to your resistance training glute-building exercises, along with other factors, such as a nutritious diet and adequate protein intake.

What is the 8-8-8 rule for glutes?

The 8-8-8 rule for glutes is a popular training method that went viral on TikTok for stimulating glute muscle growth. You perform 8 full-range hip thrusts, followed by 8 glute bridge pulses, and finish with an 8-second hold at the top of the hip thrust movement.