Forget squats — I'm a PT, and these 5 best glute exercises also strengthen your back

For many people, the most popular glute exercises are off the table when dealing with lower back injuries or sciatica. As a trainer, I also noticed that my clients were overworking their lower backs because they weren’t training the right muscles properly. This often happens during glute exercises.

Hyperextension or hyperflexion of the spine are two mistakes that occur during even the best glute exercises. Thankfully, these five glute exercises can also strengthen your back without weights, so they’re perfect if you want to grow your glutes without lifting anything heavy at the gym.

Below, we’ll explain how to perform each exercise with perfect form and the muscles that each movement targets. Tom’s Guide recommends his resistance bands, which are great for assistance, but you can also perform these exercises using just your own body weight. please.

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Beyond the most obvious reason to strengthen your glutes (let’s face it, carved peaches look great), there are many other purposes for strengthening your glutes.

First, these muscles are part of your core musculature and, along with your hip flexors and hamstrings, help protect your lower back. People who sit for long periods of time can find their hip flexors and glutes to become tight or weak. These muscles are involved in posture and protecting your back, so inactivity can lead to injury in the future.

The gluteal muscles also stabilize the pelvis, assist in hip rotation, and support lower body movement and balance. So, for those who go to the gym to build muscle, here are some ways to benefit your back.

5 glute exercises that also strengthen your back

1. High step up

Illustration of a woman doing step-ups

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The higher the step, the more force is generated by the muscles when lifting the weight upwards. Even without weights, this can be difficult for most gym-goers. To make the movement more difficult, push your legs up explosively, then slowly lower them back down. This allows the muscles to work longer during the eccentric phase of the step-up. Don’t forget to switch sides. If you want to increase strength, place weights on your shoulders, chest, or sides. This move works your glutes, quads, and hamstrings, increasing strength and stability in your lower back and core for movement.

Here we will show you how to step up. To make things even more complicated, lateral step-ups target the gluteus medius (outer glutes) and help shape them evenly.

2. Split squat

Iro of a man doing a Bulgarian split squat

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Split squats can be performed on the floor or on a bench or box with your back leg raised. That’s the Bulgarian split squat. Tighten your abdominal muscles, keep your back straight and lean forward slightly. This allows you to hit your glutes harder. The lower body exercise primarily targets your quadriceps and glutes, and works your lower back less than squats. Still, a unilateral approach (moving one leg at a time) allows you to focus on muscle activation and improve unilateral movements such as jumping.

3. Standing rebate

photo of woman giving kickbacks

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Kickbacks are one of my favorite glute activation exercises and can be adjusted to any level of difficulty by manipulating the range of motion and equipment. To properly perform a kickback, engage your core, shift your weight to one leg, and lift the other leg behind you in a controlled manner. Remember to tighten the top and keep your hips square.

Our editors performed standing glute kickbacks 100 times a day for one week. Learn how to use resistance bands, bodyweight, or a cable machine to better target your glutes, gluteus medius, core, and hamstrings.

4. Cossack squat

Woman doing Cossack squat on yoga mat at home with right leg bent, left leg extended and hands praying

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I’m a huge supporter of Cossack squats. This is a great exercise to improve range of motion, flexibility, lower body strength and power.

In other words, it’s a deeper variation of the lateral lunge that works your quadriceps, gluteus medius, hamstrings, adductors, core, and lower back muscles. It’s a common exercise used during the warm-up for CrossFit and HIIT workouts, as it helps warm up the ankles, knees, and lower back.

I find this exercise helps relieve stiffness in the lower back and back, and if you sit for long periods of time, try a few sets of 8 to 10 repetitions after you’ve spent the day sitting at your desk writing. I’ll try it. See what happened when I did 90 Cossack squats every day for a week, and how I decided to progress my squats during strength training.

5. Sit down and have a good morning.

Good morning from the fitness team here at Tom’s Guide. Full-body exercises target the posterior chain muscles, which are muscles in the back, buttocks, and hamstrings. Good morning also activates your hip flexors during the hip hinge motion, which requires core strength to keep your back safe. This movement is similar to the Romanian deadlift, except that the weight is often placed on the upper back or chest.

For this variation, sit on the edge of a bench and focus on your glutes and hamstrings, placing emphasis on your lower back. A seated good morning strengthens the back muscles used in hip hinge and extension movements such as cleans and snatches, and helps develop strength and flexibility in your back, hips, and lower body.

I would like to introduce what happened when I said good morning 30 times every day for a week.

conclusion

Gluteal hypoactivity is very common. For example, many quadriceps-dominant runners struggle to properly activate their glutes during exercise, and this repetitive lack of strength can overload other muscle groups to compensate for slack. It could mean giving.

Simple glute activation exercises like the ones above will help activate your hips, glutes, and back before big lifts like deadlifts and hip thrusts. It’s important to train the entire gluteus muscle, not just the gluteus maximus. Many exercises, such as hip thrusts and deadlifts, reach their maximum by default, but abductions can help strengthen the midbone muscles. Think side-to-side lifts and lunges. Exercising in different planes of motion, such as rotation, side to side, front and back, will target muscles throughout the body and avoid over-development of any one muscle group.

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