Grow Your Glutes With The Gym Pod

What are the glutes?

The glutes refer to a group of muscles: the gluteus maximus, commonly known as the buttocks, and the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus, which are less obvious and form the top part of the buttocks. Oftentimes, the glutes are seen as an important aesthetic component of the lower body; well-rounded glutes help balance the posterior, or rear, side of the legs, with the front, which is dominated by the quadriceps muscle. Beyond just your physical appearance, the glutes are a very important functional muscle group.

The Powerhouse of the lower body

Working out the gluteal muscles is for everybody; after all, the glutes contribute greatly to lower body movement, primarily as a “hip extensor”. Strong glutes contribute greatly to simple, everyday actions such as sitting and standing, while being a key power generator for many athletic actions such as sprinting and jumping. Yet, more often than not, we find gluteal development lacking in many people today.

The search for the best glute exercise

Resistance training is a fantastic option to grow the glutes, which can grow incredibly fast in comparison to the other muscles on the body! In recent times, there has been more research to discover  the best glute exercises for glute gains. A recent 2023 study by Plotkin and colleagues found that between the barbell hip thrust and the barbell back squat, both produced similar glute muscle growth in untrained individuals with the squat producing greater thigh size growth. The barbell back squat is a historically popular leg and glute grower, and the hip thrust is gaining more traction in gyms. What then are some other potent glute growing exercises available?

Common glute exercises

Glute exercises have to target loading the gluteus maximus, the gluteus medius, and/or the gluteus minimus muscle during the exercise.

Some common exercises that target the gluteal muscles are:

1. Deadlift
2. Good Morning
3. Leg Press
4. Hip Thrust
5. Squats
6. Lunges
7. Cable Glute Kickback

More often than not, how these exercises are performed will influence your glute gains; after all, doing a squat or a lunge in a way that emphasises hitting the quadriceps is a surefire way to reduce the effect of the exercise on the glutes!

Doing a glute-focused lower body day

A common training programming practice would be separating workouts into an upper or a lower workout, which allows us to hit the body parts on different days and provides rest and recovery to the muscles that were trained. It is very much possible to perform a lower body day that prioritises training the gluteal muscles. Before any kind of workout, a warmup that increases the temperature and blood flow of the working muscles (in this case, the glutes) is important. Here is a sample warmup you can perform before a glute-focused lower body session.

Warmup
Exercise	Sets	Reps
Bodyweight Glute Bridge	3	10
Bodyweight Squat	3	10

A Beginner Glutes Program

A simple lower body program that targets the glutes could include:

Main Workout
Exercise	Sets	Reps
Barbell Back Squat	2	8-10
Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift	2	8-10

Intermediate

An intermediate lower body program that targets the glutes can include more exercises and increase the loadability of exercises selected.

Main Workout
Exercise	Sets	Reps
Barbell Romanian Deadlift	3	8-10
Barbell Hip Thrust	3	10-12
Dumbbell Alternating Forward Lunge	2	10-12
Bodyweight Calves Raise	2	12-15

Advanced

An advanced lower body program that targets the glutes will include more exercises

Main Workout
Exercise	Sets	Reps
Barbell Romanian Deadlift	3	8-10
Barbell Hip Thrust	3	10-12
Cable Glute Kickback	2	10-15
Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squat	2	10-12
Walking Lunges	1	Failure

Build your glutes with The Gym Pod!

The best part of the above sample programs is that you can do them with minimal equipment, making it possible to grab a workout at any one of the many Gym Pods located across Singapore and worldwide. Not only that, if you are looking to learn how to perform the many glute-building exercises under the guidance of a time-tested professional, the personal trainers from The Gym Pod Academy will be more than glad to assist you in creating your own glutes-building program! What are you waiting for, book a consultation now!

References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10349977/