Building an epic lower body is hard.
And adding volume to your booty is even harder.
Men and women alike struggle to add strength and size to their legs, regardless of the tactic they use.
You’ve been doing heavy back squats, and Romanian deadlifts for what seems like forever, and your quads are thanking you for it, but the progress doesn’t seem to be transferred to your butt.
The thing is, using heavy weight and compound movements are definitely important to have in a workout regime, but your backside needs to be targetted from a different angle – and I mean that literally and metaphorically.
Your key isn’t to be adding more and more weight through these load-bearing exercises, but using equipment as simple as a resistance band to work your glutes through a variety of different angles that isolate the different muscles in your booty.
Luckily, this workout has been specially crafted with 5 exercises that you can use to guarantee gains in the derriere. And I haven’t even told you the best part.
You can do this workout wherever you want.
That’s right. With just a simple piece of equipment, like the resistance band, and 20 minutes out of your day (maximum!), you can create that physique you’ve always dreamed of!
Which Muscles Do You Need To Target To Grow A Bigger Booty?
Do not get what I am about to say twisted.
All of the muscles in your lower body are an important piece in the puzzle of trying to build your booty, and none of them should be overlooked.
That being said, there is one muscle group that takes the top spot.
This particular part of your legs is the vital component to building muscle in your backend and getting it bigger and stronger.
That muscle group, as you may have guessed, is the glutes.
What Are The Glutes?
The Gluteus muscles are a muscle group found in your buttocks, spanning from the back hip down to the top of your femur.
There are a variety of functions that are facilitated by the Gluteal muscles, with the most important being the abduction of the hip, as well as assisting with the extension of the thigh and external, or internal, rotation.
Your booty consists of 3 different muscles, each having its own role within your lower body, ultimately helping you with movement and stability.
Gluteus Maximus
Spanning from your hip to the top of your femur and covering as much as 16% of your body’s surface area, makes this muscle the largest in your body.
Its main function is to work in conjunction with hip joints and other smaller muscles to externally rotate the hip.
Due to the size of the Gluteus Maximus, it is a major muscle in keeping your body stable and helps with explosivity in sports or day-to-day life.
With this muscle being such a large component in our derriere, we must ensure that we take the correct approach with our exercises in order to target it fully.
Gluteus Minimus
As the name suggests, this muscle is the smallest of the 3 muscles within the glutes. It is located on the outer surface of your hip, spanning from the top of the posterior region of the hip to the highest point of the femur.
The main function of the Minimus is to act as a hip stabilizer. If this muscle wasn’t present, we would be unable to do mundane tasks, such as walking or sitting, without toppling over.
It also acts as a medial rotator of the thigh and a hip abductor, with it being most prominent when you are standing on one limb, as the supported side engages to keep your body level.
Gluteus Medius
The medius muscle shares many structural, and functional, features with the Gluteus Minimus.
It is located directly below the Minimus, with them both having a similar shape and surface area.
The main function of the medius has a lot of emphasis on stability.
It engages to keep your hips level and stops you from falling over.
It is also an important muscle for flexibility, with it being a major muscle for abduction and extension of the hip joints.
My Ultimate 20 Minute Booty Workout
Donkey Kick
I love the name of this exercise.
“Donkey Kick”
It just has a ring to it.
Not only is the name incredible, though, but the exercise itself is excellent in getting boot gains.
Mix it in with our trusty resistance band, and we have a perfect weight-bearing exercise that targets the Gluteus Maximus and medius from an original angle your lower body has probably not experienced before.
Not only is the donkey kick a great exercise for bulking your buttocks, but it’s also a phenomenal gateway exercise to more advanced movements by incorporating your core muscles.
This aids with toning your overall body, and improving your stability and flexibility.
How To Do It
- There are 2 different variations to this exercise, with one by wrapping the resistance band around your non-working leg, or in this case attaching it to a fixed vertical bar.
- Get on all fours, and place the other end of the resistance band around your working foot, wrapping it until the band is completely taut.
- Engage your core and keep your back straight.
- Kick back your leg at a 45-degree angle, exhaling and squeezing your glutes as you extend.
- When your leg is fully extended back, hold the position for a second.
- Lower your leg slowly, while inhaling, to keep your Gluteus Maximus under prolonged tension time.
- Repeat for 8-12 reps then switch your legs
Lateral Band Walk (Crab Walk)
Maybe the weirdest looking movement on the list, the Crab Walk is one of the best movements for building muscle gain in each of the muscles within the glutes, so don’t let how this movement looks stop you.
The Lateral Band Walk utilizes the extension of the leg, and abduction of the hips. This makes sure each muscle is working sufficiently to stretch the resistance band and overload your booty muscles.
Combine this with the intensity of the exercise and the requirement to keep your body upright and engaged, which means you have a movement that is great for stability, fitness, and all-around lower body gains.
How To Do It
- Start by placing a resistance band around your legs, either above your knees, or above your ankles. Make sure it is taut when standing shoulder-width apart.
- Squat down slightly, bending at the knees, until you feel a burn in your glutes.
- Keep your torso upright and engage your core.
- Keeping your right foot planted, take a small step to the left.
- You should feel the tension in your glutes as you push against the band.
- Bring your right foot towards the left foot, so you are standing shoulder-width apart again.
- Repeat for 10-12 reps with the left foot, then switch. Perform this exercise for 3 sets.
Banded Squat
The squat is such a common exercise in a leg routine that it is difficult for me to leave it out.
This compound movement targets the Gluteus Maximus, allowing it to build those booty gains, while helping to increase the size of our legs, through the quads and hamstrings.
Adding a resistance band to this movement helps to change the dynamic of the squat.
We are increasing the time under tension our glutes experience, meaning the intensity and the stress our muscle fibers undergo increase.
Therefore, with a banded squat, we can expect some major gains, while also burning calories and helping us tone into shape.
I love to include compound movements like this into my workouts for the added benefits of agility, balance, and fitness.
How To Do It
- Start by wrapping the resistance band around your legs, just above the knees.
- Stand shoulder-width apart, with your torso upright and hands in a fixed position near your chest.
- Engage your core and squat down by bending at the knees.
- Try to get your booty as close to the ground as possible, as increasing your depth improves those gains.
- Pause at the bottom of this exercise for a second to increase time under tension.
- Plant your heels and drive through your glutes, back to the original position.
- Repeat for 10-12 reps for around 3-4 sets.
Banded Glute Bridge And Leg Extention
Glute bridges alone are a great exercise for glute activation.
It’s an exercise that requires your Gluteus Maximus to function at maximum capacity, helping you grow a bigger and stronger booty, and strengthen your hamstrings at the same time.
Adding the leg extension to this exercise only improves it. We can drastically increase the intensity and the number of muscle fibers that tear, by including this extra movement.
The alternating leg extension requires all 3 muscles within the glutes to work in tandem, helping our body stay stable and strong.
I also like this exercise for the added health benefits.
The intensity, along with the requirement to keep your body balanced, means you can strengthen your core, and help your hip joints become more flexible.
How To Do It
- Start by wrapping a resistance band around your legs, just above your knees.
- Find a comfortable spot to lie on your back.
- Walk your legs back toward your body, bending at the knees until they are at a 90-degree angle with the floor.
- Move your legs apart until you can feel the tension in your glutes from the resistance band. This is the starting position.
- Push your booty off the ground by driving through your heels. Keep your upper back on the ground.
- At the top of this exercise, hold the position, and squeeze your glutes.
- Then, keep one foot planted, and extend the other leg off the ground. Hold for a second while fully extended.
- Slowly bring that foot back to the ground, and repeat with the other.
- Once both legs have extended, control your body back to the ground.
- Repeating steps 5-9 counts as 1 rep. Perform 10 reps for around 3 sets to complete this exercise.
Clamshell
Now, I only found this exercise recently, but it soon became a staple for me and my client’s lower body workouts when I realized its true potential.
Due to the nature of this abducting movement, it is an exercise that fully targets the Gluteus Minimus and Medius, helping to round off our workout and work the glutes effectively.
The art of flexing the hips with a resistance band is extremely useful for the body.
Rather than putting pressure on the joints and lower back using an abductor machine, we can use a resistance band to resemble a clam opening and closing its shell, strengthening our glutes, and improving our stability and flexibility.
How To Do It
- Again, wrap a resistance band around your legs, just above the knees.
- Find a comfortable surface and lie on your side, with your head resting on your hand, and your legs stacked on one another.
- Bring your knees into your body, until your feet are in line with your buttocks.
- Engage your core and keep your hips to the ground, raise the knee of the top leg as far as you can, without moving your hips or the non-working leg.
- Hold this position at the top for a second, squeezing the glutes.
- Then, slowly control the leg back to the original position.
- Repeat for around 12 reps for that leg, then switch. This is 1 set. Perform for around 3 sets.
Conclusion
And that’s it.
A whole resistance band workout you can do to maximize your booty gains, without missing those smaller muscles within your glutes.
The best part is, that this workout should only take you around 20 minutes, meaning you can train whenever, and most important wherever you want.
This coincides with my belief that gym membership has become futile. You can now train anywhere, without the commute or the expensive gym membership.
If you would like a more in-depth guide on this, check out my free E-Book, “Train Wherever The F*ck You Want” for more workouts like this one.
Are there any resistance band booty exercises I missed?
Which is your favorite movement on leg day?
Let me know in the comments below.