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While popular for women to do glute focused workouts, it's actually an important muscle for men to focus on as well.
As I tell clients all of the time, glutes are the center of our body and they serve a greater purpose beyond aesthetics!
Did you know back pain can be attributed to weak glutes? When your glutes are strong, your pelvis and hip joints are stabilized which results in your lower back not taking the brunt of your basic movements (Source).
In addition to helping prevent back pain, strong glutes can relieve the pressure off of your knees since our knees absorb about one and a half times our body weight with every step you take! Once again, with the glutes stabilizing the pelvis and hip joints, your basic movements aren't putting pressure on other joints.
When the pelvis and hip joints aren't stable, you tend to sway. Imagine with that extra sway does to your knees and ankles!
How do you develop glutes? That's the tricky part since there are three muscles involved and different movements hit the different muscles. Gluteus Maximus, Gluteus Minimus, and Gluteus Medius.
To make sure you hit all three muscles, focus on these four types of movements:
- Bridge/Thrust
- Barbell Hip Thrust - several variations can be done here from thrusts using a bench, bridges on the floor, smith machine hip thrusts, top range hip thrust pulses, etc.)
- Pull/Hinge
- Sumo Deadlifts
- Conventional Deadlifts
- Cable Kickbacks
- Single Leg Deadlifts
- Kettlebell Swings
- Abduction/Rotation (these will really hit the medius aka "shelf")
- Abduction Machine
- Cable Standing Abductions
- Lateral Band Walks
- Squat/Lunge
- Walking Lunges
- Stationary Lunges
- Back Squats
- Step Ups
- Reverse Lunges
- Bulgarian Split Squat
These are simple movements - nothing fancy. Sorry if you don't see your favorite influencer's "fancy" glute workout movements listed.
If you're looking to develop for larger glues, I'd build a workout with 2-3 from each of these categories. Do three sets for 10-20 reps three days a week.
For basic glute strength, do 1-2 from each of these categories. Do three sets of 10-20 reps each 1-2 days a week.
What are your favorite workouts for glute building?
