7 Best Glute Building Exercises for Women

Glute building exercises can help you strengthen your glutes and gain mass. Glutes play an important role in injury prevention, increasing your stability and supporting your lower back.

Strong glutes are not merely for cosmetic purposes. Building muscle in the hips, glutes and quadriceps increases your stability and strength as a runner and in other sports as well. That increases your performance and decreases your injury risk.

Glute Building Exercises for Women

Check out these seven best glute building exercises for women.

1) Lateral Step Up with Kickback

This exercise strengthens both the adductors and abductors, but the kickback is specifically designed to strengthen the glutes. Add more difficulty by wearing ankle weights.

Here's how you do this glute building exercise for bigger glutes:

Position yourself to the left of an aerobic step or box.
Start by stepping onto the box with your right leg only; contract your abs, and squeeze your left glute while kicking your left leg behind you.
Hold for one count, and release the glutel step off the box cautiously with your left leg followed by your right.
Repeat for the specified number of repetitions before switching sides.

2) Side Band Walking

This glute building exercise targets the glute-ham connection, where most women carry fat. This exercise hits a particularly hard-to-reach area in your glutes.

Here's how you do this glute building exercise for bigger glutes:

Attach a resistance band just below your knees, and assume a quarter-squat position with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apartto stretch the band.
Maintaining a strong core and a quarter-squat position, step to the right with your right leg first and then your left while maintaining tension on the band.
Repeat for the desired number of repetitions before moving to the left leg.

3) Medicine Ball Hip Thrust

Depending on how close or far you roll the medicine ball to your glutes, you'll feel this workout in different parts of your glutes. Find the one that causes the most sensation in the middle-lower area of your glutes. Place a dumbbell or weight plate on your pelvis for increased resistance.

Here's how you do this glute building exercise for bigger glutes:

Lay on the floor on your back with your legs bent and heels on a small medicine ball.
Contract your abdominal muscles, and squeeze your glutes and hamstrings to lift your hips.
Hold for a count, and return three-quarters of the way to the floor while maintaining a constricted core, and repeat.

4) Split Squat

This exercise simultaneously targets both glutes; one is stretched, while the other is tightened. Replace the bench with a stability ball to increase the challenge.

Here's how you do this glute building exercise for bigger glutes:

Place yourself in front of a bench.
Extend one foot back, and lay it on the bench so that the sole of your shoe is nearly equal to the ground.
Keeping your knee behind your toes, bend your front leg to drop your torso straight down towards the ground till your thigh is parallel to the ground and your back knee is within a foot off the floor.
As you raise up straight, press through the heel of your front leg, and squeeze your glute.

5) Single-Leg Stability Ball Glute Cable Kickback

Working one leg at a time helps eliminates muscle imbalances; experiment with various ranges of motion to see which are most effective.

Here's how you do this glute building exercise for bigger glutes:

Attach an ankle collar to the lowest setting of a cable pulley.
Wrap the strap around one ankle, and walk away from the pole approximately three feet.
Place your stomach and upper thighs on a stability ball.
Place the toes of your non-working foot on the floor behind you and your hands shoulder-width apart in front of you.
Lock your ankle. While maintaining your knee slightly bent and hips pressed against the ball, curl your heel towards the ceiling.
Hold for one count while contracting your glute, and slowly lower your toe back to the floor.

6) Single Leg Plyo Lunge

This explosive glute building exercise can help you build your glutes quicker. Here's how you do this exercise:

Maintain a shoulder-width spacing between your feet.
Step your right leg back into a reverse lunge, lowering your hips till your knees form a 90-degree angle and your left front thigh is parallel to the floor.
Explode off your left front leg, thrusting your right back knee forward as you leave the ground (pushing off with your left foot/toe).
Land softly on the left foot, and immediately transition into the reverse lunge.

7) Single Leg Smith Machine Box Squat

Perform this glute building exercise towards the start of your workout when your legs are fresh, and you can concentrate on your glutes.

Here's how you do this exercise:

Install an aerobic step inside a Smith machine, and stand with one foot on the platform and the other dangling straight off the floor, with the bar resting across your upper traps.
Remove the bar from the rack, and stretch your free leg forward at a 45-degree angle while keeping your other foot on the platform.
While maintaining a flat back, lower yourself till your working quad is past parallel to the floor.
To return to a standing position, press up through the heel while pushing the hips forward and squeezing the glutes.

Takeaway

Perform the aforementioned seven glute building exercises for stronger and larger glutes.