Guys, let’s be honest: When was the last time you thought about your glute workouts?
Yes, “glute training” has been stereotyped, unfairly, we think, as a primary focus for women in the gym. However, finally check guys have a set of buttocks too. The key misunderstanding is that there is More benefits to train your glutes than just how you’ll fill out a pair of skinny jeans. Whether you know it or not, your glute muscles are the hidden foundation for every lower body and lower back movement you’ve been doing on a daily basis.
If you’re neglecting your glute work, you’re doing it at your own peril, especially those of us who are relegated to desk work for more than eight hours a day. Sitting for extended periods, in addition to sporadic glute training, will eventually make your rear decrease in both strength and functionality. From there, it is more than likely that the rest of the body will follow, from the lower back to the knees, ankles, etc.
Don’t Make the Mistake of Skipping Targeted Glutes Workout, Says Celebrity Trainer and MH Advisory Board Member Don Saladin Y men’s health fitness director Ebenezer Samuel, CSCS They suggest these five glute-building and strengthening moves that men (and women) alike should incorporate to not only give you glorious glutes, but also improve your overall back power and strength.
“You really can’t have a strong period in the gym without strong glutes,” says Samuel. “That’s why the five movements we have for you are going to help you strengthen your glutes. But you will find that other muscle groups work: your hamstrings will work, your lower back will work because your glutes are a muscle group that needs to be hit with weight and needs to be challenged.
Benefits of training your glutes
●Build power and strength
● Aesthetics (you will build your butt)
●Helps lower back health and posture
●Key foundation for athletics
●Working with heavy weights
5 essential glute exercises
A key function of our glutes is that they drive our hips into extension, and an isolation movement like the hip thrust is a great exercise for this. It allows us to work on maximizing our hip extension, probably the most challenging part of hip thrusts. The effectiveness of the movement is one of the many reasons why the hip thrust machine is becoming an increasingly popular staple in all types of gyms. But if your club doesn’t already have one, a weighted barbell placed across your waist (a foam waist pad is also recommended for comfort) works just as well.
“I love doing them to not only isolate the glutes, but also activate those hips,” says Saladino. “So when we do our compound exercises, our bodies just feel more relaxed.”
The RDL is a phenomenal hip hinge movement, as well as one of the most adaptable exercises we can include in our glute workouts. You can do this with barbells, kettlebells, and dumbbells. This hip-dominating power-generating exercise allows you to work with heavier loads, which will help build a lot of lower-body strength. You’re not just working your glutes, most of your posterior muscle groups are also getting to work, including your hamstrings and even your lats.
“What I also like about the Romanian deadlift is that we’re getting a lot of recruiting by tracking our shoulder blades and getting our lats firing and our cores working,” says Saladino. “It’s really been one of those hip joint moves for my training… It’s something I like to get heavy and hard on.”
RDL easel
Yes, it is similar in execution to the traditional Romanian deadlift, but the main difference is in the setup. You will take a staggered stance approach, turning this into a one-sided movement. As we come down, you’ll quickly notice the load being placed primarily on the front leg, followed by a nice strong hip extension as we stand up, giving us a more athletic feel throughout the movement.
The supported RDL is also a much better alternative to the single-leg deadlift for most of us for an obvious reason: it’s pretty hard to balance on one leg for a decent number of good reps. (Seriously, how many single legs can you do with good form without breaking?)
“There’s balance, there’s load, like as you get heavier it’s going to be difficult to keep your balance,” says Saladino. “Fatigue will force you to lose your balance and I think sometimes it can get a bit sloppy and a bit dangerous. So what I love about that kickstand position is that we can put about 90 percent of our weight on that leg on the ground.”
Wide Stance Box Squat
To make squat day more glute intense, try using an exaggerated wide stance. This is similar to a sumo stance as you squat down and sit on a box in a slow and controlled manner, focusing on maintaining an upright shin position perpendicular to the ground. The goal is to focus on slowly pulling back on the box using the strength of your glutes and hamstrings while avoiding driving your knees forward. You will soon feel much more muscle recruitment.
“It’s almost like a sumo wrestler,” says Saladino. “When you see them sit wide and they are sitting in that position. That’s basically what we’re looking for. Right now. We want that movement to start with the glutes sitting back, not the knees moving forward. That’s what we mean by glute mastery as opposed to knee mastery.”
When it comes to generating hip and glute power, the kettlebell swing is like no other. Done correctly, the swing allows you to focus on hip hinge while working on full hip extension at the top. While this is a move where you want to load as much weight as possible, it can only be done correctly one way for best results: fast and explosive. And because it’s such a strenuous, power-generating movement, it can easily be incorporated into your cardio and conditioning training.
“You can use it as a cardio move or use it on the back of a leg workout. We can use it in our speed training. You can use it in so many different ways and you almost always have access to something because it doesn’t have to be just a kettlebell,” says Samuel.
Want more essential exercises for your most important muscle groups? Verify all our Muscle Musts.
Jeff Tomko is a freelance fitness writer who has written for Muscle and Fitness, Men’s Fitness, and Men’s Health.
