Best Tips to Great Glutes! - A Bodybuilders Guide

If using a squat machine such as the hack squat; opt for a wider and slightly higher stance as this will provide more glute/hamstring activation. The squat is one of the best overall lower body building exercises, targeting the quads, hamstrings, and glutes. I would suggest performing the type of squat that powerlifters use, which is called a low-bar squat for better glute/hamstring activation. Another way to enhance glute development, is to ensure you are reaching depth with your squats, parallel or below if you can. If you do partial reps when squatting the load is mostly in your quads so reduce the weight if you need to, focus on your stance, depth and squeeze your glutes at the top of the movement.

The Hip Thrust is a glute exercise designed to improve your strength, speed, and power through optimal hip extension. Although the word thrust implies a fast and explosive movement, I would suggest hip thrusts be performed in a controlled manner with a brief pause and squeeze at the top of each rep.

Lunges are one of my all-time favourite lower body exercises. Performing walking lunges will help develop your glutes, hamstrings, quads, calves and even your inner and outer hips and thighs. Lunges are a great exercise to do at the end of your workout especially for your glutes because of the degree of hip extension involved, especially with longer strides. Another great thing about lunges, they can be easily modified from very easy bodyweight lunges to extremely difficult reverse weighted lunges and many more variations to suit all fitness and strength levels.  

The Bulgarian split squat is a unilateral movement; it helps you build up strength and stability. To emphasize your glutes, take a slightly longer stride and place your foot further out in front of your body compared to the standard variation. This will shift more of the load into your glutes when performing the movement. If you would like to increase the difficultly of this exercise, try holding dumbbells at your side or use a smith machine and add additional plates.  

All forms of deadlifts target the same primary muscle groups including the glutes, hamstrings, and lower back. However, I have noticed that majority of people do not know how to activate their glute muscles in other forms of deadlifts. I believe that the best way to learn mind to muscle connection with your glutes during a deadlift movement is to start with RDLs. The hamstrings cross both the knee and hip joints, so a movement like Romanians targets the hamstrings mainly from the hip joint – although, mostly hitting your hamstrings you will feel it in your glutes as well, so make sure you concentrate on flexing your glutes at the top of the movement in the standing position.

Monster walks are a great exercise to target the glute Medius and are fantastic to superset with any of the above compound movements. They can also be used as a warm-up exercise prior to training. Monster walks are perfect for activating the muscles in your hips and glutes. The hip extensors and abductors play a major role in the function of your kinetic chain. To perform monster walks you can use a resistance band or (booty band) around your ankles, feet, knees, or upper legs, depending on the range of movement and level of resistance you would like to create. Standing in an upright position, bend your knees slightly and walk with diagonal step, moving ahead and outwards, as opposed to side to side.