The Best Glute Bridge Alternatives for a Stronger, Firmer, Shapelier Butt

Your gluteus maximus, or glutes for short, is the largest and potentially the most powerful muscle in the human body. It’s basically the engine that powers many of life’s most important movements.

From running to jumping to lifting, your glutes are the muscle doing most of the hard work.

As well as being vital for function, the glutes are also crucial for aesthetics. After all, who doesn’t want a firm, shapely butt?

If you want a bigger, more muscular butt, you need to train it, and train it hard!

Exercises like glute bridges are particularly popular because they involve no equipment, so you can do them anywhere and anytime. Glute bridges are especially good for home exercisers.

But, as good as glute bridges undoubtedly are, do them too often, and they’ll start to lose their potency. In simple terms, your glutes will get bored of them.

In this article, we reveal the 21 best glute bridge alternatives. Use these exercises to make sure your glute workouts are always productive.

Best Glute Bridge Alternatives and Substitutes

Bored of glute bridges? Or maybe you just don’t like this exercise very much. Regardless, here are the 21 best glute bridge alternatives you can use to build the butt of your dreams!

1. Frog Pump

 

This glute bridge alternative adds an element of hip abduction to what is usually a hip extension exercise. This additional movement increases glute activation and means your gluteus minimus and medius get a good workout, too. These muscles are located on the side of your hips.

How to do it:

1. Lie on the floor. Bend your legs and place the soles of your feet together. Push your knees apart.
2. Drive the outside of your feet into the floor and lift your hips off the floor.
3. Lower your butt back down to the floor and repeat for the desired number of reps.
4. Make this exercise more challenging by holding a weight across your hips.

2. Single-Leg Glute Bridges

If you’ve been doing glute bridges for a while, they’re probably getting easier. To keep improving the condition of your glutes, you’re going to need to do more reps. Or, to work your glutes harder, you can make the switch to doing single-leg glute bridges. This exercise not only increases glute activation but also forces you to stabilize your hips and core more.

How to do it:

1. Lie on your back with your legs bent and feet flat. Lift one foot off the floor. Brace your core.
2. Drive your foot into the floor and lift your butt up so that your knees, hips, and shoulders form a straight line.
3. Lower your butt back to the floor and repeat.
4. Rest a moment, swap legs, and repeat, making sure you do the same number of reps on both sides.

3. Glute Bridge Marches

Not quite ready for single-leg glute bridges? Try glute bridge marches instead. This is still a unilateral or single-legged exercise, but you’ll be alternating sides, so it’s somewhat easier than regular single-leg glute bridges.

How to do it:

1. Lie on the floor with your legs bent and feet flat. Brace your core. Lift your butt off the floor, so your knees, hips, and shoulders form a straight line.
2. Keeping your hips up, lift one leg and then the other off the floor.
3. Continue marching for the required duration or number of reps.

4. Booty Band Glute Bridges

A booty band is a short, wide resistance band. Worn around the legs, it increases gluteus maximus, minimus, and medius activation as you have to work harder to push your knees apart. You can use a booty band with a wide range of lower body exercises. Still, they’re especially useful for making glute bridges more effective.

Simply put the booty band around your legs just above or just below your knees. Then perform the glute bridge as usual, making sure you press your knees out against the resistance offered by the band. Simple, but VERY effective!

5. Stability Ball Glute Bridge

If glute bridges have a disadvantage, it is that the range of motion is relatively small. Using a stability ball increases the range of motion and introduces an element of instability to the exercise, increasing glute and core recruitment.

How to do it:

1. Lie on the floor and place your feet on your stability ball. Bend your legs and roll the ball in toward your butt.
2. Drive your feet into the ball and lift your butt up, so your knees, hips, and shoulders form a straight line. Use your hamstrings to stop the ball from rolling away from you.
3. Lower your butt back down to the floor and repeat.

6. Hip Thrust

Like stability ball glute bridges, hip thrusts increase your range of motion. Hip thrusts are often done using a barbell. Still, they’re also pretty effective when done using just your body weight for resistance.

How to do it:

1. Sit on the floor with your upper back resting against an exercise bench. Rest and hold a barbell across your hips (optional).
2. Drive your feet into the floor and lift your butt up until your knees, hips, and shoulders form a straight line.
3. Lower your butt back down the floor and repeat.
4. You can also do this exercise with one leg at a time.

7. Booty Band Squat

Glute bridges mostly work your glutes, but these powerful muscles usually work with your quadriceps and hamstrings during most athletic movements. This exercise brings all these muscles together for a challenging, functional workout.

How to do it:

1. Place your booty band around your legs, just above or just below your knees.
2. Step out so your feet are roughly shoulder-width apart, toes turned slightly outward. Brace your core and look straight ahead.
3. Bend your legs and squat down until your thighs are roughly parallel to the floor. Take care not to round your lower back. Press your knees outward against the resistance offered by the booty band.
4. Stand back up and repeat.
5. You can also do this exercise with weights and with your feet further apart – a banded plié squat.

8. Fire Hydrant

Fire hydrants are so-called because, when you do them, you look a bit like a dog peeing! Cheeky names aside, this is an effective gluteus maximus, minimus, and medius exercise that you can do almost anywhere and anytime. As such, this is an excellent exercise for anyone who prefers to work out at home or likes simple bodyweight exercises.

You can make this exercise harder by doing it with a booty band.

Learn how to do fire hydrants here.

9. Clamshells

The clamshell is another simple yet effective bodyweight glute exercise. It emphasizes your gluteus minimus and medius, but the larger gluteus maximus also gets in on the action. Like many glute exercises, you can make this move more challenging by doing it with a booty band.

How to do it:

1. Lie down on your side. Stack your hips and bend your knees to 45-degrees.
2. Rest your head on your lower arm and brace your core to stabilize your spine and pelvis.
3. While keeping your feet together, lift and rotate your upper knee outward as high as possible without moving your hips or pelvis. Do NOT lean backward.
4. Return to the starting position and repeat before rolling over and changing legs.
5. As the accompanying video shows, you can also do this exercise with a booty band for added resistance.

10. Stability Ball Hip Lift and Leg Curl

This bodyweight leg exercise combines two movements to create a very effective posterior chain exercise. Working your glutes and hamstrings together, this is an extremely functional and time-efficient exercise. Be warned; it’s not as easy as it looks!

How to do it:

1. Lie on the floor with your knees straight and your lower legs resting on a stability ball. Brace your abs.
2. Drive your heels into the ball and lift your hips up toward the ceiling.
3. Next, bend your knees and roll the ball in toward your butt. Keep pushing your hips upward.
4. Extend your legs and then lower your butt back to the floor.
5. That’s one rep – keep going!

11. Cable Hip Extension

Like glute bridges, cable hip extensions target your gluteus maximus. This exercise involves minimal lower back stress and very little hamstring engagement. As such, it means you can focus all your attention on your butt, training one side at a time.

You’ll need a low cable machine and an ankle cuff for this exercise, but you can also do it with a resistance band.

Find out more about this glute-busting exercise here.

12. Cable Pull-Through

While cable-throughs look nothing like glute bridges, they still work the exact same muscles. As they’re a cable machine exercise, you can easily adjust the weight to match your current strength. This exercise can also be done using a resistance band, making it ideal for home workouts.

Learn how to do this exercise here.

13. Donkey Kick

 

Donkey kicks are a glute exercise that often features in group workout classes. It’s straightforward to learn and easy to perform. You don’t need any special equipment to do it, so it’s perfect for home exercisers.

How to do it:

1. Kneel down on all fours so your shoulders are directly over your hands and your hips are over your knees. Your arms should be straight, and hands about shoulder-width apart, fingers pointing forward. Tuck your chin in and lengthen your neck.
2. Brace your core and ensure your lumbar spine is neutral, i.e., slightly arched.
3. Extending your hip, and keeping your knee bent, lift one leg out and behind you, pushing your heel up toward the ceiling.
4. Take care NOT to hyperextend your lower back. Instead, keep your hips/anterior pelvis pointing straight down at the floor.
5. Lower your leg back down and repeat on the same side or alternate legs as preferred.
6. Make this exercise harder by wearing ankle weights.

14. Smith Machine Donkey Kick

If you like donkey kicks but find them a little too easy, try this weighted variation. Doing donkey kicks with a Smith machine is an easy way to overload your glutes. With very little balance required, you’re free to focus on pushing your glutes to failure in relative safety.

Learn how to do this potent glute exercise here.

 

15. Lateral Band Walk

This exercise emphasizes your gluteus minimus and medius, but the gluteus maximus is also involved, as are your quadriceps and hamstrings. This is an excellent exercise for improving hip stability and firing up your glutes before squats, lunges, running, etc.

How to do it:

1. Put a booty band around your legs just above or below your knees. Step out to tension the bend. Bend your knees and descend into a quarter-depth squat. The deeper you squat, the harder your quads and gluteus maximus have to work.
2. Keeping your knees apart, take a series of steps to the left, and then return to your starting position in the same way.
3. Take wide enough steps that there is constant tension on the band.

16. Lateral Lunges

Lunges are a superb way to develop more muscular, stronger, shapelier legs. Because they’re a unilateral exercise, you’ll need to use your glutes to stabilize and extend your hips simultaneously, making them very functional and time-efficient. All types of lunges are good for working your glutes, but lateral lunges are the most glute-centric of the lot!

Learn how to do lateral lunges here.

 

17. Romanian Deadlift

All types of deadlifts work your glutes, but the Romanian deadlift (RDL) is the most glute-centric. Legend has it that the RDL earned its name when American Olympic weightlifting coaches saw Romanian athletes doing this barbell exercise. At the time, Romania was a dominating force in the sport, and the Americans thought they’d discovered the reason why!

Whether that’s true or not, the name helps differentiate the RDL from the stiff leg deadlift, which is a slightly different exercise and doesn’t work the glutes as much.

Learn how to do RDLs here.

 

18. Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift

We could have just added this exercise as a postscript to #17, but it’s such a good glute builder that it deserves its own mention. Using one leg at a time, this exercise not only works the gluteus maximus but medius, minimus, and tensor fascia latae too.

It’s also good for improving balance and coordination and is often more lower back-friendly than the two-legged version.

How to do it:

1. Hold a barbell or a dumbbell in each hand. Stand with your feet together, knees slightly bent but rigid. Shift your weight over onto one leg.
2. Hinge from your hips and lean forward, lowering the weights down the front of your leg as far as you can without rounding your lower back. Extend your non-working leg out behind you for balance.
3. Stand back up and repeat.
4. Rest a moment, and then do the same number of reps with the opposite leg.

Read more about this fabulous unilateral glute exercise here.

19. Good Morning

Good mornings get their name because, when you do them, you look a little like you are politely bowing to someone in greeting. Convoluted names aside, this is a great glute exercise that also works your hamstrings and lower back.

However, to avoid injury, you must avoid rounding your lower back when you do good mornings. Start light – this exercise is more challenging than it looks!

Learn how to do good mornings safely here.

20. Total Hip Machine Extension

With no weights in your hands or on your back, this exercise is a stress-free way to build bigger, stronger, shapelier glutes. You can also adjust the range of motion to suit your flexibility. Most gyms have a total hip machine.

How to do it:

1. Adjust the lever arm so that the leg pad is about hip height. Standing side onto the machine, lift and place the crook of your knee over the leg pad. Bend your supporting leg slightly for balance and grab the handles.
2. Drive your thigh down and back against the resistance offered by the machine. Extend your hip fully but without hyperextending your lower back.
3. Return to the starting position and repeat.
4. Do the same number of reps on each leg.

21. Reverse Hyperextension

Many weighted glute exercises involve lifting your upper body. This can, in some cases, put a lot of stress on your lower back. With reverse hyperextensions, your upper body remains stationary while your legs move. This is easier on your lower back but still provides an effective glute workout.

How to do it:

1. Lie face down on a hyperextension bench. Your hips should be on the edge of the bench, in line with the pivot point. Attach the loading strap to your ankles and grab the handles.
2. With your knees slightly bent, extend your hips and lift your legs up behind you until they are roughly parallel to the floor.
3. Lower your legs and repeat.
4. Adjust the weight to match your current level of strength.

More Related Alternatives

• The Best Home Squat Alternatives for Strong, Sculpted Legs
• Smith Machine Squat Alternatives for Powerful, Muscular Legs
• Donkey Calf Raises Alternatives for Massively Muscular Lower Legs
• 13 Best Hanging Leg Raise Alternatives For Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced Levels
• The 13 Best Calf Raise Machine Alternatives for Bigger, Stronger Lower Legs
• 15 Best Leg Curl Alternatives for Stronger Hamstrings
• Leg Extension Alternatives: 13 Best Alternatives for Quads Size and Strength  
• The Best Hack Squat Alternative for Bigger, Stronger Legs

Glute Bridge Alternatives – Wrapping Up

Your glutes are one of the most important muscles in your body. Not only do they give your rear an attractive shape, but they are also involved in almost every human movement. From getting out of a chair to climbing stairs to walking, running, and jumping, your glutes are the engine that drives you forward and upward.

Your glutes are also crucial for the health of your lower back. For example, when lifting heavy objects off the floor, if your glutes are weak, your back ends up bearing more of the load, and that’s a recipe for low back pain and injury.

So, weak, soft, small glutes? Just say NO!

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