BOXROX Pro

5 Glute Workouts to Build a Strong, Powerful and Functional Booty

Glute Workouts – Your glutes are some of the largest muscles in your body, and having a strong backside is important to all of our foundational movements.

This means your ability to run faster, jump higher, and squat heavier is all dependent upon your ability to generate force from your gluteus maximus. If your glutes aren’t strong enough then you will lack the efficiency to do thing’s like climb mountains, balance on one leg or squat.

Athletes with strong glutes will be faster, more efficient and explosive in their movements.

They consist of three different muscles: gluteus minimus, medius and maximus. These three muscles work together to rotate, abduct and extend the hip.

Developing strong glutes can also reduce your risk for injuries in the knees, lower back, hamstrings and groin. Weak glutes can cause an imbalance in the hip, which may lead to excessive medial rotation of the femur and lateral tracking of the patella, thus potentially causing knee pain.

To understand why this is, you need to understand just how muscle work. Think of muscle as a rubber band. As you stretch that rubber band you can feel the tension build up in it (potential energy). If you let it go when the tension is fully built up, it will fling from your fingertips across the room.

This is based upon the “recoil” principle in physics. Our gluteus maximus is part of a continuous chain of muscles and connective tissue that displays this “recoil” effect often during CrossFit WODs. Each time that we take a step during a run or hinge at the hips, we stretch out our glutes and rely on this “stretch-relax,” to move us. This makes our glute muscles part of a powerful engine called the posterior chain.

Add these 5 Glute Workouts into your training and if you like to mix things up, program the 5 glute exercises that follow into your workouts. 

GLUTE WORKOUTS

1. BOOTY BLASTER – GLUTE WORKOUTS

AMRAP in 15 minutes
20 Frog Pumps
20 Single-Leg Glute Bridges (10 each leg)
20 Air Squats
20 Lunges (10 each leg)
Complete as many rounds as possible in 15 minutes. Must complete all reps of one exercise before moving to the next.

Score is the total number of rounds completed and reps on the unfinished round.

Tips and Strategy

Make sure that you are engaging your abs through Frog Pumps and Glute Bridges as it can be easy to overextend the lower back in these movements. If you are feeling your lower back get tight through the workout make sure to slow down, check your form, or scale the exercise back so we feel the burn in the legs and hips.

Intended Stimulus

Should be a relentless blast to the glutes. The variety of angles we use to hit the glutes should allow you to keep pushing through the 15 minutes.

Movement Standards

Frog Pump: Lay on the ground with your back flat on the ground and feet together just like in Butterfly Sit-Ups. Lift your hips from the ground with your upper back still planted on the ground. Lift your hips all the way up then lower them down for one repetition.

“Frog Pump” Movement Demo

Single-Leg Glute Bridge: Lay on the ground with your back flat on the ground and feet close to the hips. Raise one leg fully extended while the other foot stays on the ground. Lift your hips towards the sky and down to the ground for one repetition.

“Single-Leg Glute Bridge” Movement Demo

Scaling

Add a weight across your lap for frog pumps and glute bridges if you have it. Sub to double leg glute bridges if you cannot reach full hip extension on every rep.

2. OPTIMUS PRIME

AMRAP in 7 minutes
Wall Ball Shots (20/14 lb)
5 Deadlifts (225/155 lb) at the top of each minute
Workout starts with Wall Ball Shots. Then, at the top of each minute, starting at 1:00, complete 5 Deadlifts, then immediately resume Wall Ball Shots.

Score is the total number of repetitions (of Wall Ball Shots and Deadlifts combined) completed before the 7-minute clock stops.

3. GLUTE WORKOUTS – HAMSTRING OPENER

For Time
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of:
Strict Toes-to-Bars
Romanian Deadlifts (135/115 lb)
Romanian Deadlift starts at the top and lowers until the hamstrings come on tension and stretch.

Scaling

For Time
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of:
Hanging Knee Raises
Romanian Deadlifts (95/75 lb)

4. LIVING ROOM MASH 26

21-15-9 Reps for Time
Stiff-Legged Deadlifts (pick load & object)
Left Leg Pistols
Right Leg Pistols
With a running clock, as fast as possible perform the prescribed work in the order written. Athlete must complete 21 reps of each movement before moving on to 15 reps and 9 reps.

rich-froning-pistolsSource: CrossFit Inc
rich-froning-pistols

Score is the time on the clock when the last round of Right Leg Pistols is completed.

Movement Standard

Stiff-Legged Deadlift: This is similar to a standard Deadlift aside from the barbell moving away from the shin to have less tension on the lower back.

5. GLUTE WORKOUTS – THE WALKING DEADLIFT

5 Rounds for Time
10 Unbroken Deadlifts (225/155 lb)
50 foot Single-Arm Dumbbell Overhead Walking Lunges (50/35 lb)
With a running clock, as fast as possible perform the prescribed work in the order written for 5 rounds. Athlete must complete the 10 Deadlifts unbroken. If the athlete rests or lets go of the bar during the 10 reps, the round will not count. Rest or switch arms as needed during the Overhead Walking Lunges.

Score is the time on the clock when the last round of the Single-Arm Dumbbell Overhead Walking Lunges is completed.

Scaling Options

Intermediate
5 Rounds for Time
10 Unbroken Deadlifts (135/95 lb)
50 foot Single-Arm Dumbbell Overhead Walking Lunges (20/15 lb)

Beginner
5 Rounds for Time
10 Unbroken Deadlifts (75/55 lb)
50 foot Walking Lunges (20/15 lb)

5 Important Glute Exercises. 

1. GLUTE HAM RAISES


2. BARBELL GLUTE BRIDGES

3. SUMO DEADLIFT

4. FRONT SQUAT

5. PAUSED SQUATS

Pausing at the bottom of the repetition allows the elastic energy to drive away while simultaneously breaking your momentum. There is no kept energy to take advantage of, no kinetic energy to use. When you pause, all you’ve got is your muscles to produce the force you need.

For more training information, check out this article:

7 Dead Stop Exercises to Develop Explosive Strength and Power

Image Sources

Related news