There are tons of different approaches during workouts to target glutes whether your goal is endurance, hypertrophy, strength, or a mixture of the three. Now the gluteus maximus is the biggest muscle that we have in our body and the glutes as a system, are featured in a lot of other movement patterns, activation sequences, and athletic movements. Now main movements like squats or deadlifts do engage the glutes, but we want movements that are focused purely on hip hinging or leg abduction. On top of that, research is pushing towards the approach that working in a wide range of repetitions throughout your workout is the best approach to fitness. Two of the top exercises that target the glutes require minimal or no equipment.

Start by laying down on your back and have your knees bent with feet on the floor. With band or hip circle above the knees, start by pushing your knees out and back into a caved-in position (you can slightly roll on the edges of your feet when you push the knees out). Perform 30 quick repetitions. No breaks here! Right away support your body by laying on your forearms (slightly dipped position) and perform another 30 repetitions. Now with arms extended and palms on the floor, perform another 30 abductions. Taking the body through different hip flexion angles pushes the body to work harder to finish the 90 repetition burnout.

 an old-fashion hip extension movement that can have a loop band added in if you’re looking for that kind of progression. Kwon & Lee (2015) looked at EMG studies on how different knee angles influence the hip extensor in a prone position. They found the greatest gluteus maximus EMG with bent legs compared to straight legs. This means that staying in a quadruped positions (hands and knees on ground and straight with their relative joint) and donkey kicking with a bent knee works the glute extremely well.