4 secrets to building stronger glutes at home

Let’s be real. Everyone wants a strong butt for all the obvious reasons – strength and stamina when walking, running, or hiking, (potentially) less knee and back pain, and the aesthetic benefits.

However, you may not have access to a gym or the time to workout at a fitness facility or studio, so let’s talk about how you can get stronger glutes at home.

Here’s the good news. Exercise is exercise. Your butt truly doesn’t care where you workout. The secret to getting stronger glutes is simply knowing what to do and consistently doing it.

Below are my tips for building a better butt at home.

Double down on the basics.

I’m hoping that you will be relieved to learn that there are no magic glute strength exercises. The best way to build a strong and awesome butt is by practicing the basic strength moves – squats, deadlifts, hip thrusts, and lunges.

There are lots of variations of these exercises and they are all great. The key is to practice these movements with good form (no rushing or half assing #punintended) and pick variations that feel good in your body, challenge your muscles, and keep you mentally engaged.

Work your angles.

It’s important to know that you can’t spot tone or spot reduce your butt (or any part of your body for that matter). However, working muscle groups at multiple angles can mean more muscle activation than if you practice the same movement repetitively.

This is particularly important for your glutes, because they respond to different leg positions and lower body movements. This doesn’t just mean that it *may* change the appearance of your backend (lots of factors can affect that), but more importantly, it will promote improved strength and function.

Some examples of how to work the different “angles” of your glutes:

• Suitcase squats with a narrow stance and parallel legs
• Sumo squats with a wide stance and legs turned out
• Split squats with legs parallel
• Curtsey lunges with legs turned out

Add some resistance.

I love bodyweight workouts like yoga and Pilates, but if you want to get better results faster, practice glute strength and lower body exercises with an external form of resistance, such as a resistance band, dumbbells, or kettlebells.

Don’t have equipment at home? Try practicing bodyweight exercises like squats and lunges really slowly or isometrically. This might mean lowering down for a count of 10 and coming up for a count of 10.

It could also mean lowering down one third of the way and holding that position for a count of 10. Then lowering down halfway and holding that position for another count of 10. Then lowering down all the way into the movement and holding for a count of 10. You could also repeat this on the way up. Burn baby burn!

Why does this work? Because strength is all about time under tension. Going slower and pausing in a movement are ways to make exercises more challenging when you don’t have external forms of resistance like resistance bands or kettlebells.

Train your glutes consistently.

Yep. I know it’s a bummer, but just like brushing your teeth, you can’t do it once and be done for the year. To see results, you have to consistently train your backend. What is consistent? Ideally, two to three times a week. This doesn’t need to be a life event, but try to incorporate some lower body exercises into your workouts up to three times a week and you will probably notice and increase in strength.