Ask anybody their opinion on how to grow glutes, and you’ll get a hundred different answers.

The Instagram influencer girls will tell you it’s all bands, kickbacks and hip thrusts.

The Tiktok girls will tell you it’s all RDL’s, Bulgarians and Kas Glute Bridges.

The gym bros will tell you it’s all squats and deadlifts.

The truth is none of them is wrong.

The best way to get well-rounded glute development is to do it all and not be so narrow in your training.

We call it a shotgun approach! So spread your net wide and try a bit of everything.

I will give you my opinion on what I think is the most effective strategy for growing your glutes.

Before we jump into it, go follow me on Instagram, where I post awesome glute and training content daily.

What? Do you think I was born this way?

Nope.

I was a skinny kid who couldn’t gain weight to save this life.

So what changed?

I started lifting weights.

I gave my body a reason to grow and gain weight.

Instead of just eating and hoping.

Exercise Selection

There are more exercises that train your glutes than any other body part I can think of.

But many of them are, in my opinion, unnecessary or less effective than focusing on the big compound exercises. Don’t get bogged down in the weird and wonderful moves you see on Instagram.

The Glute Max is the largest muscle on the human body and is the muscle that gives your butt its shape.

When we talk about building booties this is the main muscle people want to train.

Nothing will ever beat these exercises for your glute max and overall glute growth:

Hip Thrusts & Single Leg Thrusts
Glute Bridges & Kas Bridges
Romanian Deadlifts & Good Mornings
Bulgarian Split Squats & Split Squats
Step Ups
Squats & Leg Press
Deadlifts (all)
Lunges - Reverse, Deficit, Walking, Curtsy
Back Extensions
Cable Kickback variations.

In order to put together a great leg and glute workout, I would pick 4-5 of these exercises (or a variation of one) and do them 1-3x a week.

Simply focus on getting stronger on these 3-5 exercises, and you’ll see glute growth.

Now…

We can’t neglect the Glute Medius.

The gluteus medius is a fan-shaped muscle that lies above and partially beneath the gluteus maximus. This is the muscle that helps build the coveted booty shelf as it provides some shape to the upper bum region.

To target the glute med, we want to add in some of the following exercises (there are of course, many, many, many more):

Glute Medius Kickbacks
Cable Abductions
Side Lying Leg Raises
Hip Raises
Abduction Machine
Fire-hydrants
Clamshells
Banded Abductions

Now, take 1-2 of these exercises and put them at the end of your workouts.

These are like the icing on the cake; they provide some shape, lift and refining but won’t build the mass as the compound exercises will.

Here is an example workout:

Day 1:

Hip Thrust 5x8
RDL 3x8
Back Extension 4x12
Glute Medius Kickbacks 3x12
Cable Abductions 3x10

Exercise Selection By Glute Goal

There are usually 3 goals when it comes to glute growth than may affect what exercises you choose for your workouts.

Bigger lower glutes
Bigger upper glutes aka the booty shelf
More side glutes aka wider hips, working on hip dips etc.

This is where we need to discuss Lengthened Range exercises and Shortened Range exercises.

If you want more lower glutes then you may want to focus more on Lengthened Range exercise.

These are movements that hit your glutes hardest when they are stretched out and are particularly good for the lower segment of the glute max.

You need to focus heavily on:

Romanian Deadlifts & Good Mornings
Bulgarian Split Squats & Split Squats
Step Ups
Squats & Leg Press
Deadlifts
Lunges - Reverse, Deficit, Walking, Curtsy

Here is an example workout:

Day 2:

RDL 4x10 (Lengthened)
Squat 3x8 (Lengthened)
Step Up 3x12 (Lengthened)
Hip Thrust 4x20 (Shortened)
Side Lying Leg Raises 3x12

If you want more upper glute shelf then you need to focus heavily on Shortened Range exercises as they are great for hitting the upper segments of the glute max.

You need to focus heavily on:

Hip Thrusts & Single Leg Thrusts
Glute Bridges & Kas Bridge
Back Extensions
Cable Kickback variations.
Glute Medius Kickbacks
Cable Abductions and all the other abduction exercises.

Here is an example workout:

Day 3:

Kas Glute Bridge 4x8 (Shortened)
Hip Thrust 3x8 (Shortened)
Back Extension 3x15 (Shortened)
Bulgarian Split Squat 4x8 (Lengthened)
Cable Kickback 3x12 (Shortened)

Sets & Reps For Optimal Glute Growth

This one is a tricky area.

Again every fit chick and her dog will have a different opinion on this, I’m no different.

But I’ll refer back to the shotgun approach.

The glutes can handle a lot of punishment, they are, after all, the largest and strongest muscle group.

So we can hit them with heavy sets, lighter high rep sets and everything in between.

In my opinion, a well-rounded glute program should work on 3 main aspects:

Building a strong foundation (Heavy weight, 1-6 reps)
Building glute muscle size (Moderate-Heavy weights, 6-12 reps)
Building glute muscle endurance (Moderate-Light Weights 12+ reps)

Again it comes down to your goals, do you want a strong butt, a big butt, or do you like chasing the pump?

If you are training legs and glutes 2-3 a week, then I would recommend a range of sets and reps across the week.

Do some exercises heavy and hard, others lighter and high rep.

Here’s an example for a week:

Leg Day 1 - Hip Thrusts 5x6
Leg Day 2 - Hip Thrusts 4x10
Leg Day 3 - Hip Thrusts 3x20

Or another example:

Leg Day 1:

Deadlift 3x4 (heavy)
Hip Thrust 3x8 (moderate)
RDL 3x12 (moderate)
Back Extension 4x20 (light)
Frog Pumps 1x100 (band or bodyweight)

This is very much a personal choice.

Play around and find what works best for you. Maybe your body responds well to heavy weights; maybe it responds better to lots of volume (high rep).

Just make sure to apply progressive overload.

Fuck around and find out 😂.

How Often Should You Train Glutes?

This one is a little simpler.

Ideally, 2x a week minimum.

This will give your muscles regular stimuli to grow and lots of time to recover.

If you can handle it then 3x a week could be for you, it’s more intense, and recovery time is shortened, but I find newbies do well on 3x a week.

Now, 3x a week doesn’t mean you do lots more work, it means you spread your training out over more days. We are increasing frequency, not necessarily volume, across the week.

In my experience with clients, starting at 3x a week is fine, but eventually, they get better results dropping down to 2x a week and upping the intensity.

But you can train glutes up to 5-6x a week; they can handle it, just not as big leg workouts. Instead, it would be as part of a full body workout, accessory workout or cardio day.

Should You Train To Failure?

Yes, absolutely, but not all the time.

Training to fail is a great method to assure you’re pushing your limits.

But it also created systemic fatigue, and that will cause you to suffer after a while.

A simple method is to train within 2-3 reps of failure on the most exercises and especially any exercises where serious injury could occur if you fail hard without a safe set-up or due to bad form.

Again, don’t push to failure all the time. It’s good to leave some gas in the tank.

Your performance in subsequent sets doesn’t suffer nearly as much if you aren’t constantly failing.

You’re able to perform more reps during those latter sets because you’re not as fatigued.

In the end, you’ll get the same results with a lot less effort.

Ok, I think that covers the main, key aspects of achieving amazing glute growth.

Stick to 3-5 compound exercises and get strong at them.
Pick 1-2 Isolation exercises to end your workouts.
Train all rep and weight ranges.
Train glutes 2-3x a week.
Apply progressive overload.
Be smart about training to fail.

Now there is one BIG elephant in the room.

Nutrition.

You can do everything we just talked about to absolute perfection, but if your diet sucks, you results will suffer.

Nutrition is ALWAYS your first stop on the glute-building journey.

No one ever built an ass if they didn’t eat properly.

I see it time and time again, girls trying to grow their glutes on 1200-1500 calories and doing HIIT 5x a week.

That won’t get you anywhere.

We need calories and protein to build those glute muscles.

I go into much more detail on glute building nutrition in this article, check it out when you are done.

I’ve got a brilliant and handy CALORIE CALCULATOR on my website that will give you custom calorie targets, advice on macro splits and advice on either building muscle or burning fat, make sure you check it out.