Great Butt Exercises That Aren’t Squats

Training glutes is important. Strong butt allows you to run fast, jump high, and land soft, all of which is great for anyone regardless of whether they are a professional athlete or your average gym goer. Besides there is an aesthetic factor, which is more important to most people. There are many great exercises that will help you build strong big glutes that will keep you stabilized, provide hip extension, and back support. We wrote separately about squats but there are many more moves that can help you in training glutes.

Butt Exercises That Aren’t Squats

Since deadlift is one of the basic moves for butt building and often goes along with the squats we’ll skip it. Doing deadlifts with the proper technique is the key to doing them safely. Other great exercises you can include into your workout are clamshell, glute bridge, and reverse glute raises.

Glute Bridge

Glute bridge is a great exercise that really activates the glutes. You can do it in a number of different ways with or without weights and the exercise ball. If the regular glute bridge is too easy for you try one leg glute bridge. Lie on the floor or the gym mat with your legs bent at the knees. Raise one leg and straighten to be in line with your bent leg and now raise the butt squeezing the glutes as high as possible. Bring the butt back down without resting it on the floor. Repeat for 10-15 reps or till you feel the burn. Add weights when you feel it’s become too easy.

Reverse Glute Raise (Reverse Hyperextension)

This one’s popular on Instagram right now. You can do it on the floor but if you do it on an elevated surface like a bench you can add ankle weights or an exercise ball to make it harder. With your belly on the floor or a bench keep your legs like a frog and lift them together with your butt as high as you can, then slowly bring them down without resting on the floor. It will probably take you about 20 reps to feel the burn if you’re doing it on the floor but on the bench you can do it for 15 reps or even less if you have good ankle weights or a heavy exercise ball. Feel the glutes working whenever you bring the legs up.

Reverse hyperextension is a bit different than a reverse glute raise but the principle is similar. You can either use the reverse hyperextension machines as in the picture above or a regular hyperextension bench. Be very careful with the latter as it has a very steep angle.

Clamshell

Clamshells seem deceptively easy but do around twenty of those and you will start really feel the burn. You can add a resistance band to make the exercise more challenging. If it’s too easy for you do the hip abductions right after doing clamshells.

Romanian Lunges

Lunges are a basic move you may argue but the Romanian lunge is something far more challenging than the usual lunge variation. Take a bench or any raised platform and place one leg on it while performing the regular squat. Isolating one of the legs you get a good feel of the working muscles. Besides it’s a very difficult exercise that you can do without weights, adding them later when you do it perfectly and it’s easy for you.

What are your favorite and in your opnion effective glute exercises?