Three movements build the glute: a hip thrust or glute bridge to load it shortened, a squat pattern set up for hip travel rather than knee travel, and a Romanian deadlift for the lengthened position. Add a kickback and an abduction movement at the end of the session for the glute medius, since every one of the big three moves only in the sagittal plane. A wide sumo stance does not lengthen the glute, so narrow the stance and get the hips further back instead.
This is for the wellness and bikini competitors, and for the bodybuilders who just want big striated glutes. Either way, start with the muscle.
The gluteus maximus starts medially at the sacrum and runs out toward the IT band and the femur. It is a fan shaped muscle, and it functions in hip extension with some role in external rotation of the hip. You also have deep external rotators, and the glute medius, which takes the leg out to the side.
Now the part that settles a long running argument. Look at how the glute fibers run across the glute: they are tight in a normal position, and the moment you abduct the leg those fibers go limp. So no, a sumo stance does not put the glute in a fully lengthened position. On top of that, most sumo positions keep the torso really upright, which is joint stacking that lets you lift higher loads rather than lengthen the muscle.
For glute function we want narrower stances where the hips can get really far back. That principle comes back on every pattern below.
| Movement | Its job | Where it loads the glute |
|---|---|---|
| Hip thrust or glute bridge | Neural activation, direct work | Fully shortened |
| Glute biased squat | Loaded hip travel | Lengthened under load |
| Romanian deadlift | The hinge, with residual hamstring | Lengthened |
| Kickback and abduction | Glute medius and rotators | Lengthened, high rep |
The glute bridge is almost an isolation movement. There may be some movement at the knee, but the glute does the work. If glutes are your emphasis, I like programming this one first, so you get good neural activation and stimulus while the muscle is short, then move into the lengthening movements.
Set the feet up on a plate at slightly outside shoulder width with a slight external rotation of the toe. That position pre shortens the glute, which is exactly what you want from the movement that owns the shortened end range.
Do not start all the way down on the seat. Going too far down brings the lumbar into it, you get a lot of arch in the lower back, the knees travel in, and tension shifts everywhere except the glute. Bring the hips up so your start position has a more neutral lumbar spine, then drive tension through the heels to move the hips up.
The cueing is not driving the head back into cervical extension, which is what most people do. It is rib cage down, core braced, spine pushing back into the pad, hips driving up and back.
Foot placement diagnoses itself. If the knee travels back quickly and you never reach what should be the end range, your feet are too far out in front. If you are getting a lot of quad right off the top, your feet are too close.
Last piece, and it matters: do not hold the top position. The shear force through the lumbar spine and the hip complex up there leads to injury profiles we do not want. Drive force through, reach the shortened end range contraction, then control the eccentric on the way down.
A bench and barbell setup, ideally with a foot elevation, gets more out of the hip thrust than the alternatives.
A glute bridge on the floor is the one we get asked about most. Lying flat pitches you the opposite way, with the shoulders above the knees. It does get the glute really short, but the application of force in that shortened position is suboptimal. If it is all you have, use it.
Hip thrust machines are fine, with one check: make sure the finish position makes sense from the shoulders relative to the knee, and that it is not pitching you too high. For shorter lifters the foot pad can sit low relative to the shoulder pad, and you end up with a forward tip.
A Smith machine can work, but the stoppers and the fixed straight line limit your range, and this movement has a little rear travel in the bar, so it can limit your ability to produce force in the right path.
A lot transfers over from squatting for quads, but the cue off the top is quite different, because the bottom end range you are aiming for is a different position.
Stance is around shoulder width, and the width you pick is the one that lets you get the most hip travel away from the bar. The initial movement is hips back first. You sit into a vertical shin angle rather than driving the knee over the toe, and for a lot of people the bottom lands around 90 degrees, because that is where the hips are furthest away from where the load sits on your back.
Going deeper than that is not more glute. The hip starts tucking under at the bottom and it becomes a lot of adductor. Stop where you reach full hip flexion, keep equal pressure on the big toe, and do not let the heels shift the load forward and hand the work to the quads.
Coming up, the cue is not to stand straight up. Think hips forward and up, because driving the hips forward is hip extension, which is the action of the glute.
Know the cost before you program it. That hip travel away from the bar comes with torso lean, which creates a lot more force at the erectors to keep you from folding over. There is a higher erector requirement in a glute squat than in a quad squat, so it has to be accounted for in the session.
Structure changes the pick. A really tall lifter with a long femur and short torso already has the forward lean that caters to glute, so a glute squat can suit them well. A reverse hack squat lets the hips travel back more, which is fine for a short femur lifter, but a taller athlete's knee hits the pad and they end up rotating and shifting into lower back work instead of glute.
We rule out the sumo deadlift and the conventional deadlift for this. The Romanian deadlift is the hinge that trains the glute.
Most of the setup carries over from the stiff leg deadlift, with slight deviations to move the focus onto the glute. The stance stays around shoulder width but goes slightly wider, with a slight external rotation of the toes.
There is a programming advantage worth knowing. The RDL leaves residual hamstring volume even while being glute biased. So for someone who needs a lot of glute but still wants some hamstring, the RDL is preferential, where a back squat does not change hamstring length much because the knee and hip are working together.
For the unilateral pattern, flip what you did for quads. Quads got a front foot elevated split squat. Glutes get the rear foot elevated version.
Here is the gap in most glute programs. The squat, the hip thrust and the RDL all move in the sagittal plane. Nothing moves in the frontal plane or the transverse plane. The glutes function in abduction and external rotation too, and none of that gets trained by the big three.
An abduction machine covers it. Putting the hips into flexion makes the glute work harder, and you bring in the external rotators and the glute medius that the other movements never reach.
The kickback is the other one. Set the cable so it aligns with the ankle at the bottom position, which loads the glute lengthened and tapers the load off as the leg goes back, since the cable angle to the lower leg keeps closing. It will never load like an RDL or a squat, and that is fine, because that is not its job.
Two execution notes. Hold the post as a brace, because the cable will try to tip you as you kick back, so you need that counter force. And do not kick straight back relative to the torso. Angle the torso relative to the cable path so the foot follows the glute fiber direction, which is what actually moves the glute from lengthened to shortened. On a machine version you are braced well enough that kicking straight back still gets a lot out of it.
Program both at the end of the session, in higher rep ranges. The glute medius has a big role in lateral hip and knee stability, so fatiguing it early will cost you output on your squats. From a stage standpoint, that upper side glute that comes out in a bikini or wellness shot is the glute medius, and the kickback is where you actually train it.
The adductor machine tends to get lumped in with glute work, so treat it the same way. Rib cage over pelvis, grab down on the handles for a good torso brace, drive the thighs together through the pads into full contraction, then slowly let them out.
It is a primary movement for building adductors as an isolation pattern, and it usually favours higher rep ranges, since load can be a limitation.
Placement should be strategic. Some people put it early in a session to help gain access into ranges. Just know the adductors have a main role in stabilising the pelvis and the knee, so if you fatigue them out and then go squat, you are less stable. Ideally it goes at the end.
There is no single one, because the glute needs loading short and long. A hip thrust or glute bridge owns the shortened position, a glute biased squat and an RDL own the lengthened position, and a kickback or abduction machine covers the glute medius that none of those reach.
No. When you abduct the leg the glute fibers go limp, so a wide sumo stance does not put the glute in a lengthened position, and it keeps the torso upright for lifting load rather than for training the muscle. Narrow the stance so the hips can travel further back.
To full hip flexion, which for a lot of people is around 90 degrees, because that is where the hips are furthest from the load on your back. Past that the hip starts tucking under and it becomes a lot of adductor rather than more glute.
Foot placement and start position. Quads usually mean the feet are too close. A knee that travels back fast and never reaches the end range usually means the feet are too far out in front. Lower back usually means you started too low on the seat and are arching, so raise the hips and start from a neutral lumbar spine.
Only in abduction and external rotation work, because the squat, hip thrust and RDL all move in the sagittal plane. Use an abduction machine and a kickback at the end of the session in higher rep ranges. That upper side glute in a bikini or wellness shot is the glute medius.
Hourglass is the J3 University program for female physique development, built around the glutes and the waist with the execution standards and session structure this page is drawn from.
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John Jewett is an IFBB Professional bodybuilder and physique coach, and the founder of J3 University. He has spent his career competing at the professional level while coaching competitors and everyday lifters through the same training, nutrition, and recovery principles he uses himself.
J3 University exists to make that process teachable. Every course is built on the reasoning behind the method, not just the method, so you can make better decisions about your own physique long after the program ends. The article above is drawn directly from the J3U course curriculum.
