The 3 Best Butt Workouts Of All Time To Sculpt Those Glutes

It’s certainly not uncommon for recreational weightlifters to focus their strength training workout on building muscle and strength in all of the major muscles in the body.

Even advanced and competitive bodybuilders and weightlifters likely put a lot of focus, energy, and attention into their leg day workouts, back workouts, chest workouts, arm workouts, and core workout routines.

We strive to build size, strength, and definition in the deltoids, pec, lats, traps, biceps, triceps, abs, and all of the muscles of the lower body.

So, what about the best butt workouts and butt exercises? What are some good butt workouts at the gym for beginners and advanced athletes?

In this guide, we will discuss the benefits of doing butt workouts at the gym or at home and then give you the best butt exercises to help you structure your butt workouts to suit your personal fitness goals.

We will cover: 

• What Are the Benefits of Butt Workouts?
• What Are the Best Butt Workouts At the Gym?
• What Are the Best At-Home Butt Workouts?

Let’s jump in! 

What Are the Benefits of Butt Workouts?

Having a tight, firm, shapely butt is certainly among one of the top physique goals, and having a strong butt will help you dominate all of your workouts as well as everyday life activities.

The butt is formed by the glute muscles (gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus). Strong glutes help power your jumping, sprinting, running, squatting, and deadlifting exercises.

The glutes tend to be relatively weak in the posterior chain, requiring greater reliance on the lower back muscles and hamstrings even though the glutes are larger and more powerful muscles. 

What Are the Best Butt Workouts At the Gym?

There are plenty of benefits of going to the gym for your butt workouts, the most obvious being the fact that you will have access to a full suite of exercise equipment.

Between dumbbells, barbells, a squat rack, kettlebells, and weight training machines, you can certainly get an excellent butt workout with exercise equipment at the gym.

Though it is possible to get a great butt workout at home, particularly if you have home strength training equipment like adjustable dumbbells, resistance bands, a stability ball or yoga ball, or better yet, a squat rack and weights, it is usually ideal to do butt workouts at the gym. 

Butt workouts at the gym are much easier to choose the best butt exercises freely and structure the best butt workouts for your training goals because you have a full suite of exercise equipment to choose from with no limitations that you will experience with at-home butt workouts.

There’s also way more variety in the particular butt exercises you can perform because you can use different forms of equipment, from barbells to dumbbells, kettlebells to weight machines, and so on. 

Therefore, there is no single best “butt workout at the gym.“

Choosing the best butt exercises for your gym butt workouts will depend on your fitness level (beginner butt workouts vs. advanced butt workouts) and training goal—hypertrophy, strength, power, muscular endurance, or prehab/rehab.

It is possible to train your butt muscles using similar exercises for most of these training goals, but the number of reps and sets you will perform and the weight you will use for each butt exercise will differ significantly.

The best butt workouts for beginners will also differ from the best butt workouts for experienced athletes, as the complexity of the butt exercise can be progressed as your strength and experience level increase.

Below are some of the best butt workouts at the gym for different training goals.

Make sure to warm up properly before any butt workout by doing some light, general cardio for at least 5 to 10 minutes, followed by some dynamic stretching and mobility exercises for the hips, hamstrings, quads, and low back.

If you do a high-intensity, heavy-lifting butt workout for mass or strength, you should also consider doing some warm-up sets with light weights to activate your butt muscles before you dive into the meat of the butt workout at the gym.

#1: Butt Workout for Strength and Power

Here is a butt workout for increasing strength and power:

• Barbell Back Squats: 3 to 5 sets of 2 to 6 reps with at least 85% of your 1RM
• Power Clean: 3 to 5 sets of 2 to 5 reps with at least 85% of your 1RM
• Barbell Deadlifts: 3 to 5 sets of 3 to 6 reps with at least 85% of your 1RM
• Barbell Hip Thrusts: 3 to 5 sets of 4 to 8 reps with at least 75% of your 1RM
• Glute-Ham Raise: 3 to 5 sets of 6 to 8 reps with at least 75% of your 1RM
• Plyo Box Jumps: 4 sets of 5-8 reps

Rest 2 to 4 minutes between sets of each butt strength exercise.

#2: Butt Workout for Hypertrophy

Here is a great butt workout for mass or muscle growth:

• Banded Goblet Squats With a Kettlebell (push out against the resistance band placed just above your thighs) 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 75-80% of your 1RM
• Bulgarian Split Squats: 3 sets of 8-10 reps per leg with 75-80% of your 1RM
• Deficit Reverse Lunges (front leg up on a short step or platform): 3 sets of 12 reps with 70-75% of your 1RM
• Step-Ups: 3 sets of 8-10 reps per leg with a weight that maxes you out by the last rep
• Kettlebell Swings: 3 sets of 15-20 reps using power 
• Jump Squats: 3 sets of AMRAP in 30-60 seconds
• Single-Leg Hip Thrusts: 3 sets of 8-12 reps per leg with 75-80% of your 1RM
• Single-Leg Romanian Deadlifts: 3 sets of 8-12 reps per leg with a weight that maxes you out by the last rep
• Cable Machine Leg Extensions: 3 sets of 12 reps per leg with 65% of your 1RM
• Curtsy Lunges: 3 sets of 12-15 reps per leg with just your body weight
• Side Lying Straight Leg Raises: Use an ankle weight; 3 sets of 15-20 reps per side

What Are the Best At-Home Butt Workouts?

While it is generally best to do butt workouts at the gym so that you have all of the equipment at your disposal to choose the best butt workouts for your goals, it is also possible to do at-home butt workouts.

If you have strength training equipment, you can do any of these gym butt workouts laid out, modifying the workout based on what you have available.

However, you can do bodyweight butt workouts at home if you do not have exercise equipment.

Bodyweight butt workouts will not be particularly effective at building muscle and increasing strength for advanced athletes due to the lack of external resistance, but you can get a great bodyweight butt workout for beginners.

If you are a stronger athlete and need to do a butt workout without equipment at home, make sure you are performing your sets to failure to help stimulate muscle growth and strength improvement.

You can also use bodyweight butt exercises as good rehab/rehab butt exercises if you have an injury or want to strengthen your butt for running, cycling, or another exercise and have to start with the basics if you are new to strength training.

Here is a good bodyweight butt workout at home:

• Jump squats 
• Bodyweight squats (use a loop resistance band just above your knees if you have one available and push outward against the band)
• Step-ups using a stair or sturdy box
• Single-leg stair hops
• Single-leg squats or pistol squats 
• Forward lunges
• Lateral lunges
• Reverse lunges
• Side-lying leg lifts (use an ankle weight if possible)
• Stability ball hamstring curls if you have a yoga ball; otherwise, you can do Nordic hamstring curls by kneeling down and anchoring your heels under something secure
• Single-leg Romanian deadlifts (use a weighted object if you don’t have weights at home)
• Single-leg glute bridges 
• Single-leg hip thrusts off of a coffee table or chair
• Resistance band side steps with a little loop resistance band around your ankles
• Resistance band Frankenstein walks in the squat position with the resistance band around your ankles
• Tabletop position fire hydrants and leg extensions

Do as many reps and sets as seems appropriate for your fitness level. Beginners should start with 2-3 sets of 15 reps if you are using bodyweight only.

If you are trying to do butt workouts to get a bigger butt, learn how to maximize your muscle gains in our muscle-building guide here.