HOW TO GROW THE GLUTES AT HOME
Sometimes, hitting the gym is challenging. Busy schedules, family duties, or distance from the gym can hinder our workout plans. But fret not! You can still sculpt a fabulous booty Without stepping out of your house. Yes, you heard it right! You can effectively grow your glutes right in the comfort of your own home. You can tone any muscle without fancy gym equipment.
Today, let’s explore how you can achieve a rounder, firmer butt without ever leaving your home.
HOW TO BUILD THE GLUTES:
No matter where you choose to Exeter at the gym o, whetherr in your living room, the fundamental principles of muscle building remain consistent. Two key principles in your muscle-building journey are progressive overload and maintaining a muscle-building diet.
PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD FOR GLUTE GROWTH
Progressive overload involves gradually increasing the intensity of your workouts over time. Our bodies adapt to new challenges, such as exercise, by building muscle and becoming more assertive.
To continue seeing progress, it’s essential to consistently challenge your body by pushing its limits. There are various ways to achieve progressive overload, including increasing the number of reps, sets, or workout frequency, trying new exercises, reducing rest times, or increasing resistance.
Increasing resistance, like adding heavier weights, is a standard method. Tracking your workouts and aiming to improve each week is key at home; increasing resistance might not be if you lack equipment at home. You can opt for other methods, such as growing reps or shortening rest times, to intensify your workouts and stimulate muscle growth.
MUSCLE BUILDING DIET
When building muscles, what you eat plays a significant role in helping your muscles grow. This means ensuring you eat more calories than you burn daily – known as a “calorie surponly.”
A calorie surplus means taking in more calories than you’re burning daily. This is important for building muscles. Even if you’re following the best workout routine to help your muscles grow, you will see little muscle gain if you eat enough.
Aim for a calorie surplus of around 200-500 calories per day. This should help you gain about 0.5 lbs/0.25kg of muscle weekly. Monitor your weight and take pictures regularly to track your progress.
If you’re gaining more weight than this each week, you might be overeating, which could lead to unwanted fat gain. On the other hand, if you’re not seeing these weekly gains, you might need to eat more.
While keeping track of your weight and progress photos is a good idea, if you’re serious about building muscle, consider tracking your calories. This way, you can ensure you’re eating the right calories every day without guessing.
Start by figuring out how many calories you need to maintain weight. Then, add 200 calories per day to work towards your weekly muscle gain goal. If you need to hit your target, increase your calorie intake by 100 calories until you reach your desired muscle gain.
Our helpful article, “How many calories do I need when bulking,” can guide you through this process and help you figure out how much protein, carbs, and fats you should eat.
Practical Glute Exercises at Home
Now that we’ve discussed the basics of building muscles let’s explore some great exercises you can do at home to target your glutes effectively.
We understand that not everyone can access gym equipment at home, so we’ve included bodyweight exercises requiring minimal or no equipment. For those who have access to weights or are considering investing in equipment, we’ve also provided variations of exercises that involve weights.
While bodyweight exercises are excellent for beginners and even intermediate fitness enthusiasts, you may need to progress to weighted exercises to continue seeing results.
To build muscles effectively, pushing your sets close to failure is essential – you can’t do any more reps. Stopping your sets just before failure provides enough tension on your muscles to promote muscle growth. The best rep range for muscle building is typically between 6-20 reps.
For example, if you’ve been doing bodyweight squats for a while and can now do many reps, it’s time to switch to weighted squats to stay within the optimal rep range for muscle growth.
The same principle applies to other exercises. While bodyweight exercises are a great starting point, once you’ve built enough strength, consider upgrading to weighted variations to continue challenging your muscles effectively.
- Squats for Stronger Glutes
Squats are often hailed as the ultimate exercise, and for good reason. They engage multiple muscles in your lower body, including glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves.
When you descend into a squat, your glutes are stretched, and as you rise back up, they work hard to push you upwards.
Research has shown that working muscles in a stretched position can lead to better muscle growth. That’s why squats are a fundamental part of many glute-focused workout routines.
If you’re new to squats, start with bodyweight squats to get the hang of the movement. Focus on perfecting your form before adding any extra weight.
It’s time to increase the challenge once you can comfortably do 20 bodyweight squats with good form. As mentioned, progression is critical to building muscle, and getting stronger usually means getting bigger, too.
Consider investing in a barbell or adjustable dumbbells to add resistance to your squats. These pieces of equipment are versatile and valuable for many other exercises, not just squats. Adding resistance can take your glute workouts to the next level and help you achieve better results.
2. Unlocking Stronger Glutes with Hip Thrusts
In recent years, hip thrusts have gained immense popularity as a go-to exercise for those aiming to enhance their backside. Created by glute specialist Bret Contreras in 2006, this exercise effectively activates the glutes without stressing the spine.
The primary function of the glutes is to extend the hips, and hip thrusts target this movement precisely, with the resistance directly challenging the glutes.
If you’re new to hip thrusts, starting with just your body weight is best. All you need is a platform about knee height – a sturdy sofa can serve the purpose.
Here’s how to perform hip thrusts using your body weight:
1. Sit on the ground with your back against the platform.
2. Roll a barbell or a pair of dumbbells over your hips.
3. Bend your knees and plant your feet firmly on the ground, hip-width apart.
4. Push through your heels and lift your hips until your body forms a straight line from your shoulders to your knees.
5. Squeeze your glutes at the movement’s top, then lower your hips.
6. Repeat for the desired number of repetitions, aiming for about 20 reps.
You can use weights once you’ve mastered the form and can perform 20 reps comfortably. You can use either a barbell or a dumbbell for added resistance.
Simply position the weight across your hips and perform the movement as before, using your hands to stabilize the weight if necessary.
3. Enhance Your Lower Body with Lunges
Lunges is another great exercise that works your glutes and engages your quads, hamstrings, and calves. Unlike squats and hip thrusts, lunges are unilateral exercises that target one leg at a time. This helps improve single-leg strength and correct any muscle imbalances.
The unilateral nature of lunges also activates the gluteus medius and minimus, which are often overlooked but play a crucial role in stabilizing the hips and maintaining balance.
What makes lunges even better is that there are many variations to choose from, each targeting your muscles slightly differently. For building size in your glutes, we recommend the reverse lunge.
When you’re ready to add resistance, you can use a barbell or dumbbell. You can place the barbell across your back, like a weighted squat, or hold a dumbbell in each hand to increase the challenge.
4. Elevate Your Glute Workout with Step-Ups
Step-ups may seem simple, but they’re incredibly effective. You might not have considered step-ups a crucial part of your glute-building routine, but we’re here to tell you they’re worth considering. A study conducted in 2020 compared glute activation in various popular glute exercises like squats, deadlifts, hip thrusts, lunges, and step-ups. Surprisingly, step-ups showed the highest level of glute activation.
While glute activation doesn’t directly translate to glute muscle growth, research suggests a connection between the two. So, if an exercise efficiently activates the target muscle, it’s likely to contribute to muscle growth.
Once you’re comfortable doing step-ups with just your body weight, you can challenge yourself further by holding a dumbbell in each hand.
5. Boost Your Glutes with Bulgarian Split Squats
Bulgarian split squats aren’t just great for targeting the quads; they’re also killer for your glutes. Elevating your rear foot increases the range of motion, putting your glutes in a beneficial stretched position. Your glutes work hard during this exercise to extend your hips and return you to the starting position.
Bulgarian split squats are unilateral exercises like step-ups, meaning they target one leg at a time. This helps build single-leg strength and can enhance athletic performance.
You’ll need a platform for this exercise; conveniently, a sofa works well for this purpose too. Since Bulgarian split squats are more advanced, you may need to practice them for several months before progressing to weighted variations.
6. Elevate Your Glute Game with Donkey Kicks
If you’ve observed people working on their glutes, chances are you’ve seen the donkey kick. As the name suggests, this exercise involves getting on all fours and kicking one leg behind you (though not exactly like a donkey).
Donkey kicks are excellent for isolating the glutes, as they mimic the exact movement that engages the gluteus maximus (glute extension). This exercise is versatile and suitable for beginners and experienced lifters alike.
The beauty of donkey kicks is that you don’t need any equipment – none! However, having an exercise mat can be helpful to cushion your knees. If you have a thick carpet, that should suffice.
Once you’ve mastered the technique and can comfortably do about 20 reps, you can level up by adding some weight. Simply place a dumbbell between the crease of your hamstring and calf and perform the exercise as usual.
7. Strengthen Your Glutes with Reverse Hyper-Extensions
A bit more intricate but worth the effort to learn. Reverse hyper-extensions are fantastic for targeting the glutes, hamstrings, and lower back. This exercise effectively works your glutes without putting strain on your joints. If you’re recovering from an injury or prefer low-impact exercises, reverse hyper-extensions are ideal.
As shown in the image, you’ll need some sort of platform for this exercise. While a weight bench works well, you can also use other pieces of furniture – we’ve even tried it with a sofa pouf, and it did the job perfectly!
As you know, progressive overload is crucial to muscle building, so we provide ways to make each exercise progressively more challenging. Once you’ve mastered bodyweight hyper-extensions, you can increase resistance by holding a dumbbell between your feet. Be aware of how light the dumbbell looks. It’ll add a significant challenge to the exercise!
8. Strengthening Your Side Glutes with Banded Side Steps
While the previous exercises focused on building the gluteus maximus, it’s essential to recognize the gluteus medius and minimus. These muscles on the sides of the buttocks are responsible for moving the leg outward away from the body’s midline.
That’s where banded sidewalks come in. This exercise requires minimal equipment – just a resistance band, which you can easily find at an affordable price, and some space to walk side to side.
Banded sidewalks are excellent for strengthening the gluteus medius and building the upper glutes. The constant tension from the resistance band enhances glute activation, providing a unique stimulus for muscle growth.
For optimal results, we suggest performing compound exercises earlier in your workout and leaving these last two exercises for the end. Compound exercises require more energy, while these last two exercises are less demanding on your body.
If you don’t already have a set of resistance bands, we recommend starting with the lightest resistance and gradually increasing over time.
9. Activating Your Side Glutes with Seated Glute Abduction
Similar to banded sidewalks, seated glute abduction targets the gluteus medius. You don’t necessarily need to do both – try them and stick with the one you prefer.
While banded sidewalks target one side of the glutes at a time, seated glute abduction works both sides together. Seated glute abduction may be more efficient if you’re short on time.
Seated glute abduction is a great finishing exercise for the end of your workout when you feel fatigued. This intense exercise will work your glutes, breaking down muscle fibers and aiding muscle-building.
Start with a light resistance band and gradually progress to heavier ones as you build strength and endurance.
Final Takeaways
Let’s circle back to what we mentioned at the beginning: you don’t need a fancy gym membership to sculpt your ideal butt – you can achieve it right in the comfort of your own home.
Two key points to remember from this guide are: focus on progressive overload and maintain a muscle-building diet. These two factors will set you on the path to achieving the rear end you’ve always wanted.
We hope we’ve addressed all your queries about home glute training. Remember that building your glutes, like any muscle, requires patience and consistency – it’s not an overnight process. Stay committed, stick to the fundamental muscle-building principles, and you’ll start seeing those results before you know it.
