Overview
Effective glutes training involves targeting the gluteus maximus, medius and minimus to some capacity.
The gluteus maximus is involved in hip extension and abduction.
The gluteus medius and minimus is involved in hip abduction.
Because of this glutes training should generally be thought of as two distinct motor patterns, hip extension and hip abduction. Hip extension could be further divided into shortened, mid-range and lengthened biased movements.
Glute training is also extremely dependent on how you are training the quadriceps and hamstrings. If you don’t particularly care for maximal glute development, you might need zero direct glute work. If you’re looking to maximise the gains, then a careful balance between the three is required when it comes to programming.
Prescription
Minimalist
An absolute minimalist approach means 1 movement ‘slot’.
In this case if we can only 1 motor pattern, there’s a clear winner:
- Hip extension (mid-range biased)
Moderate
If we have more resources to expend on the muscle group, it is of course the preferred approach.
In this case the movement slots would look like this:
- Hip extension (mid-range biased)
- Hip abduction
Maximalist
This is the approach if we are throwing everything at the kitchen sink. Use sparingly either if you are in a plateau or looking for a specialisation phase.
Here the movement slots might look like this:
- Hip extension (mid-range biased)
- Sumo stance
- Hip extension (lengthened biased)
- Hip extension (shortened biased)
- Hip abduction
Standout exercises
Hip extension (mid-range biased) movement
Glute Bridge Machine
- If you’re taking a minimalist 1 exercise approach, this is arguably the best all-rounder glutes exercise. It’s midrange biased, has a good resistance profile, and scales indefinitely.
Barbell Hip Thrust
- The inferior older brother to the glute bridge machine, unfortunately. A perfectly decent exercise, but annoying to setup (the barbell, the bench for your back, ideally a barbell pad) with a worse resistance profile than the machine variant.
- Pick this only if your gym doesn’t have a glute bridge machine.
Hip extension (lengthened biased) movement
Smith Machine FFE Split Squat and variations
- This gets the glute max to its end range and the unilateral movement allows us to fully focus on one glute at a time.
- Front foot elevation can be added with a plate to further emphasis the lengthened range.
- For the context of glutes the smith machine probably confers some marginal benefits, but dumbbells are a perfectly valid alternative.
Sumo stance movement
These are compound hip extension movements. While very effective, the training stimulus heavily overlaps with our quads and hams training. These only make really sense in a glute specialisation phase, to replace our standard quad and/or ham work.
Wide Stance Leg Press
- Moderate width stance and moderate height on the leg press pad is more technically correct. This is quite different to a quad dominant leg press.
- Arguably the best option, the stability of the leg press allows significant overloading of the glutes. Obviously, the quads will still be working hard here.
Sumo Stance Deadlift
- Specifically just a conventional deadlift with a wider stance. This isn’t the same as a powerlifting style sumo deadlift with a maximally wide stance.
Sumo Stance Squat
- Think of a typical quad dominant squat, then have the feet an inch or two wider and angled fractionally more outwards.
Hip extension (shortened biased) movement
Glute-dominant Back Extension
- Ideally done on a 45 degree back extension, the setup of the pad will be a notch or two below the height for a erector dominant back extension.
- This allows you to lock in and absolutely fries the glutes, there’s not much better than this.
Glute Kickback Machine
- Another worthy candidate if you have the equipment, this is the same motor pattern but unilateral.
Cable Kickback
- Another unilateral move, it’s arguably a bit too unstable to be the top choice but a fine option to rotate in.
Hip abduction movement
Hip Abduction Machine
- The key point here is to shrug up and back with the shoulders, not just up. Vastly underrated, a standing cable shrug with a full contraction and 2 second hold in the shortened position annihilates the mid traps.
Execution
The key with all hip extension movements is staying in the active range of motion of the glutes.
This means not going past the end range where you have a mind muscle connection with the glutes, to the point where you’re just arching your lower back.
The glute bridge machine is a typical example of this; your active ROM is quite possibly smaller than you think.
There’s also going too far trying to fully contract the glutes, especially on the glute bridge or hip thrust. Here it‘s crucial to keep the contact points on the inner parts of the foot as you’re driving up; you may notice there’s a half inch or so of movement you can’t reach without having the weight distribution of your feet go outwards. We don’t necessarily want that final ROM where we’re losing glute tension.
Programming
Reps, tempo, sets, rest times
The glutes are one of the most straightforward muscles conceptually; assume standard reps and sets.
Intensifiers and volume
Heavy hip extension movements do not go well with intensifiers so progression should be done with straight sets only.
Shortened biased work is a different story, and cluster sets and drop sets can work well here.
Sequence
As always the standard rule with a muscle group with multiple exercises in a session is shortened biased first, mid-range biased second, lengthened biased third.