Booty-Building Workout

A simple but effective booty-building workout should focus on your lower body with primarily glute-dominant movements. Choose weights that are light enough that you can complete a set with good form, but heavy enough that the last few reps are a struggle. Below are a variety of booty-building exercises to try. If you’re brave enough, try them combined in a killer leg workout, also detailed below. Enjoy and good luck!

Crab walk

Start standing with your feet comfortably apart. Bend your knees and lower your body down into a squat. Step your left foot out to the side and bring your right foot to follow. Either continue stepping with the left side until you have completed the set then switch to the right, or step your feet back and forth and move side to side. For increased difficulty, place an elastic stretching band around your knees or ankles. Keep your feet apart to avoid losing tension in the band.

Bridge

Start lying on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat. Keeping your feet on the ground, push into the floor as if you were trying to push your body backwards and your hips should lift up. Squeeze your glutes to lift your hips and avoid overarching your back, then return to the starting position.

As with the previous exercise, a band around the knees will increase the difficulty of this movement, just remember to keep driving your knees outward as you lift.

Deadlift

Start standing with weights in your hands and your arms straight down. Keeping your back flat and your abs tight, push back with your hips as if you were trying to touch a wall behind you with your butt. Your torso will lean forward as your hips go back. Keep the weights close to your body as they lower down and keep your abs tight to prevent your back from curving. Once you feel the stretch in your hamstrings, bend your knees and continue to lower the weight towards the ground. Once you’ve reached the ground, squeeze your glutes and drive your hips forward as you stand up. Deadlifts can be done with any kind of weight.

Front or back squat

The type of squat is determined by how you load your weights. As the names imply, front squats involve holding the weight in front of your shoulders, while for back squats, it’s behind them. The former involves more abdominal and quadricep muscle engagement, whereas the latter involves more of the glutes and hamstrings. Both are great exercises for working your glutes. For either type, start with your feet comfortably apart. Bend your knees and lower your body towards the ground until your knees are at a 90 degree angle — or lower. Driving your knees outward, push into the floor with your feet to stand up, squeezing your glutes to optimize activation.

Step up

Find a knee-high object. Step onto the platform with your right foot then stand, keeping your knee driving outward and squeezing your glutes to help you lift. Stand up fully. You can either place your left leg on the platform in a standing position, or not, adding more of a balance dynamic to the exercise.

Next, in a controlled manner, lower back down, keeping your right knee driving outward to use your glute. Alternate with the left leg or repeat for the same side for a full set before swapping.

Forward lunges

Start standing with your feet together. Step your right foot forward and bend your back knee. As you lower down, keep your shoulders above your hips. You want your knees to be near a 90 degree angle by the end of the movement. Then slowly stand up, keeping your front knee driving outward. Bring your left leg in front of the right to move into the next lunge and work the other side. Continue driving your knees out to maintain glute activation.

Good mornings

Start by standing with the weight loaded across the back of your shoulders. Reach back with your hips, keeping your knees as straight as possible — without locking them. Keep your back flat and hinge at the hips to lower your torso until it’s parallel to the floor. Squeeze your glutes while moving back to a standing position.

Techniques

There are many ways to make your workout more challenging, two methods of which are by performing supersets and dropsets. A superset involves performing two exercises back to back with no rest in between — the rest comes after the set. Alternatively, a dropset entails starting your exercise with a heavy weight and completing as many reps as you can (with good form, of course).

Once you’ve finished the set, reduce the weight by 10–30% and repeat with as many reps as you can until failure. You should be able to do slightly more. Continue to lower the weight until you have performed three or four dropsets. To challenge yourself further, try adding pauses or slowing the movements down. For example, during a squat, pause at the bottom for two counts. The pause activates your muscles further, making them work harder.

Workout

I’ve designed a specific workout aimed to build up your booty, including the exercises described above. Use a weight that allows you to perform every rep of the movement correctly with good form, but that tires you by the end of the set. Enjoy!