Upper Glute Exercises That Actually Work

Search for upper glute exercises and you will get a dozen lists, all confident, most of them selling leggings or resistance bands. Very few of them stop to explain what the upper glutes actually are, which matters, because the answer changes what you should train.

The best upper glute exercises are hip abduction movements: side-lying leg raises, banded lateral walks, standing side leg raises, curtsy lunges and single-leg glute bridges. They work because what people call the upper glutes is mostly the gluteus medius, and that muscle moves your leg sideways rather than backward.

What the upper glutes actually are

You have three gluteal muscles on each side, and they are not stacked in an upper and lower layer the way the phrase suggests.

So when someone talks about the upper glutes, they are describing an area rather than a muscle: the gluteus medius and minimus, plus the top fibres of the gluteus maximus. It is the region often called the hip dip area, the part that creates the shelf at the top of the buttock and the rounded outline from the side.

The lower glutes, by the same logic, are the lower fibres of gluteus maximus where it meets the hamstrings. There is no separate lower glute muscle either.

Can you actually target upper versus lower glutes?

Partly, and the honest answer is more useful than either extreme you will read elsewhere.

Yes, in the sense that gluteus medius is a genuinely separate muscle with a separate job. It moves your leg out to the side and stops your pelvis dropping when you stand on one leg. Hip abduction exercises train it and hip thrusts largely do not. If your upper glutes are the priority, changing your exercise selection makes a real difference.

Only partly, within the gluteus maximus itself. A muscle contracts as a whole, but the gluteus maximus is large, with fibres running at different angles and separate nerve branches, and some regional emphasis is possible. Movements where the hip is more bent tend to involve the lower fibres more, and movements with the leg turned outward or abducted tend to involve the upper fibres more. The effect is real but modest. You cannot sculpt one half of a muscle to order.

What this means practically: train the gluteus medius deliberately with abduction work, train the gluteus maximus hard with hip extension work, and accept that the overall shape you end up with is also determined by your skeleton and where your body stores fat. Those last two are not training variables, and any page promising to change them is overselling.

A word about hip dips

A large share of the interest in upper glute training comes from hip dips, the inward curve between the hip bone and the top of the thigh. It is worth being straight about this, because a lot of content in this space is not.

Hip dips are a normal skeletal feature, not a sign of anything being wrong or untrained. They come from the distance between the top of your femur and your hip bone, and from where the muscle attaches. Most people have them to some degree, they are more visible in some bodies than others, and no exercise changes bone position.

What training can do is build the gluteus medius that sits just above that area, which fills the space slightly and softens the outline. The effect is real but modest, and it varies a lot between people. If someone promises to eliminate hip dips in thirty days, they are selling you something.

The upper glute work below is worth doing regardless, because gluteus medius strength affects how you walk, how stable your pelvis is and how your knees track. Those are better reasons than the outline.

Ten glute exercises, grouped by what they train

The first five bias the upper glutes. The last five build the gluteus maximus, which is what gives you overall size and strength. You want both, and a workout combining them is set out further down.

1. Side-lying leg raise

Lie on your side, legs stacked and straight, head resting on your lower arm. Roll your top hip very slightly forward and turn the toes of the top foot down toward the floor. Lift the top leg about 30 to 40 centimetres, then lower slowly without letting it rest.

The detail that makes this work is the slight forward hip roll and the toes-down foot position. Lifting with the toes pointing up shifts most of the work into the hip flexor at the front instead of the gluteus medius. 12 to 15 each side.

2. Banded lateral walk

Loop a resistance band around your legs just above the knees, or around the ankles for more difficulty. Stand with feet hip-width, knees slightly bent, hips pushed back a little. Step sideways, keeping tension in the band the whole time, for ten steps one way and ten back.

Do not let the trailing foot snap in to meet the leading one. Keep the feet at least hip-width apart throughout, which is what keeps the band loaded. If you do not have a band, the resistance band guide covers what to look for, and a light loop band is the single most useful purchase for glute work.

3. Standing side leg raise

Hold a chair back or worktop. Keeping the leg straight and the toes pointing forward, lift one leg out to the side about 30 centimetres. Lower slowly. Stay upright rather than leaning away from the moving leg, which is the most common way this gets easier without getting more effective.

The standing version of exercise one, and the best option if getting down to the floor is awkward. 12 each side.

4. Curtsy lunge

Stand tall. Step one foot backward and diagonally across behind the other, as if curtsying, and bend both knees to lower. Push through the front heel to return. Keep your hips facing forward throughout rather than rotating with the step.

The crossed-over position stretches the gluteus medius of the front leg under load, which is why it hits the upper glute in a way a normal lunge does not. 8 to 10 each side. Hold a light dumbbell once bodyweight is comfortable.

5. Single-leg glute bridge

Lie on your back, knees bent, feet flat. Lift one foot off the floor and extend that leg, or simply hug that knee toward your chest. Push through the heel of the grounded foot to raise your hips, keeping them level, then lower slowly.

Standing on one leg forces the gluteus medius to stop your pelvis dropping on the unsupported side while the maximus does the lifting. That combination is why this earns its place in both halves of the list. 8 to 10 each side.

6. Glute bridge

Lie on your back, knees bent, feet flat and hip-width apart, heels reasonably close to your buttocks. Push through your heels and lift your hips until your body makes a straight line from knee to shoulder. Squeeze at the top, then lower slowly.

The most accessible glute exercise there is, and the one people rush. If you feel it mostly in your hamstrings, move your feet closer to your body. If you feel it in your lower back, you are over-arching at the top instead of squeezing your glutes. 12 to 15 repetitions.

7. Hip thrust

Sit on the floor with your upper back resting against the front edge of a sofa or a sturdy chair, knees bent and feet flat. Drive through your heels to lift your hips until your torso is roughly parallel to the floor. Lower under control.

The elevated shoulders give a longer range than a floor bridge and let you load it easily by resting a dumbbell across your hips, padded with a folded towel. This is the highest-value gluteus maximus exercise for most people at home. 10 to 12 repetitions.

8. Standing hip extension

Hold a chair back. Keeping the leg fairly straight, move one leg backward behind you, squeezing the buttock at the end. The range is small, around 20 to 30 centimetres. Do not lean forward to get more, because that range comes from your lower back, not your hip.

12 each side. Add a band around the ankles to make it considerably harder.

9. Step-up

Use a sturdy step or the bottom stair. Step up with one foot, driving through the heel rather than the toes, bring the other foot up, then step down slowly leading with the same foot.

A higher step means more glute and less quad, so use the tallest step you can manage with good control. 8 to 10 each leg. Holding a dumbbell in each hand is the easiest way to progress this.

10. Romanian deadlift with dumbbells

Stand holding a dumbbell in each hand in front of your thighs. Keeping your knees softly bent and your back flat, push your hips backward and let the dumbbells travel down the front of your legs. Go until you feel a strong stretch in your hamstrings, then drive your hips forward to stand.

This is a hip hinge, and it trains the glutes and hamstrings together through a long range. 10 to 12 repetitions. Go lighter than you think and prioritise a flat back over depth. There are more dumbbell lower body options in the dumbbell leg workout.

A standing-only glute workout

Plenty of people would rather not get down on the floor, whether because of knees, wrists, pregnancy, or simply not wanting to. You can train glutes well standing up.

The full glute workout

This is the one to use if floor work is fine. It balances upper glute and gluteus maximus work rather than doing three variations of the same movement, which is the most common flaw in glute routines online.

Twice a week, with at least two days between sessions. Rest 90 seconds after the first three exercises and 45 to 60 seconds after the rest. Warm up first, even briefly, and the warm-up routine is enough.

How long should you hold a glute bridge?

A common question, and the answer depends on what you are after.

For a squeeze at the top of each repetition, one to two seconds is plenty. Longer than that and you start losing tension rather than adding stimulus.

For a static glute bridge hold as its own exercise, 20 to 45 seconds is a sensible range. Build toward 60 seconds, and once you can hold a two-legged bridge for a minute without your hips sagging, switch to a single-leg hold rather than extending the time further. Holding for three minutes trains endurance you have no particular use for.

Holds are useful for learning to feel your glutes working, which is genuinely the hard part for people who sit all day. They are less useful than repetitions for building the muscle, so treat them as a tool rather than the main event.

Do squats build glutes?

Yes, though less exclusively than their reputation suggests. Squats train the quadriceps, glutes and adductors together, and glute involvement rises the deeper you go and the more you push your hips backward. A shallow, upright squat is largely a quad exercise.

So squats will build your glutes, but hip thrusts and Romanian deadlifts load them more directly, and neither does much for the gluteus medius. A programme built only on squats is a common reason people train for months and find their shape has not changed the way they expected. There is a full breakdown in what muscles do squats work.

On whether squats make your buttocks bigger: they add muscle, and added muscle changes shape. How much depends on your genetics, how hard and how progressively you train, and whether you are eating enough to support building tissue. Nobody can tell you a number, and anyone who does is guessing.

Does walking build glutes?

Walking on flat ground: barely. Your glutes are active when you walk, but at an intensity far below what builds muscle. Walking is excellent for general health, joint comfort and managing body fat, and that last point does affect how your body looks, but it is not glute training.

Walking uphill, or on an incline, is a different matter. Hip extension against a slope loads the glutes meaningfully, and hill walking or stair climbing sits somewhere between walking and proper strength work. It will help, particularly if you are starting from very little.

If your goal is shape rather than fitness, the honest answer is that walking supports it without doing the job. Two short strength sessions a week plus your usual walking will do far more than adding another 5,000 steps. More on what walking does do well in walking for weight loss.

How to grow your glutes, specifically

Everything above covers which exercises train which part. Growing the muscle is a slightly different question, and it comes down to three things that matter far more than exercise selection.

• Progressive load. The glutes are among the largest and strongest muscles you have, which means bodyweight bridges stop challenging them quickly. If you have done the same 15 bodyweight bridges for two months, that is why nothing has changed. Add a dumbbell across the hips, move to single-leg versions, or both.
• Enough total food and protein. Muscle is built from what you eat. Trying to grow glutes while in a significant calorie deficit is working against yourself, and the protein intake calculator will give you a sensible target.
• Time measured in months. Eight to twelve weeks for a first noticeable change, six months or more for something substantial. Anyone promising a transformation in 30 days is describing a lighting change.

On rep ranges: 8 to 12 with a genuinely challenging load builds more than 30 easy reps. The common advice to do very high reps for glutes is a hangover from bodyweight-only training, where high reps were the only progression available. Once you can load the movement, you no longer need them.

Two sessions a week, four to six hard sets of hip extension work per session, is a sensible target. More than that is usually fatigue rather than stimulus.

Can you change the shape of your glutes?

Partly, and the honest boundaries are worth knowing before you spend six months chasing something training cannot deliver.

What you can change: the size of the gluteus maximus, which affects overall projection, and the size of the gluteus medius, which affects the upper outer shape and how full the area above the hip looks. Both respond to progressive training over months.

What you cannot change: the width of your pelvis, the angle at which your femur meets your hip, and where your body preferentially stores fat. Those three set the underlying shape, and they are inherited. Two people doing the identical programme for a year will end up with different-looking results, and that is not a training failure.

Body fat is the other variable, and it works in both directions here. Lower body fat makes the muscle more defined, but the glutes are also partly composed of fat in most people, so losing a lot can reduce size even as definition improves. There is no single right answer to that trade-off, only your own preference.

The practical version: train hard, eat enough, give it six months, and judge the result against your own starting photographs rather than against someone whose pelvis is a different shape.

How long until you see a change

Strength improves quickly. Within three to four weeks you will manage more repetitions and heavier loads, mostly because your nervous system has learned to recruit the muscle rather than because the muscle is bigger.

Visible change takes longer. Eight to twelve weeks of consistent, progressive training is a realistic first checkpoint, and meaningful change often takes six months. Two factors sit alongside training: body fat, since the same muscle looks different under different amounts of it, and your skeleton, which sets your hip width and the position of the femur and is not adjustable.

Photographs from the side every four weeks in the same light and clothing are more useful than a mirror, which adapts to gradual change without telling you. There is more on realistic timelines in how long until you see results from working out.

Five mistakes that stall glute progress

• Only doing hip extension. Bridges, thrusts and squats all train the same pattern. Without abduction work the gluteus medius gets almost nothing, and that is the upper glute.
• Never adding load. Bodyweight bridges stop being challenging quickly. Once 15 repetitions are comfortable, add a dumbbell or move to single-leg versions.
• Feeling it in the hamstrings or lower back instead. Usually feet too far away on a bridge, or arching the spine at the top rather than squeezing the buttocks.
• Toes up on side leg raises. Turns a gluteus medius exercise into a hip flexor exercise. Toes down and hip rolled slightly forward.
• Training glutes five days a week. They are a large muscle group that needs recovery like any other. Twice a week done properly beats five half-hearted sessions.

The other quiet one is eating too little to build tissue. Building muscle requires enough total food and enough protein, and the protein intake calculator will give you a target if you are unsure.

Bands are the best tool for hip abduction. See the resistance band leg workout.

Glutes and hamstrings train together. See hamstring exercises at home.

For the single best glute exercise done without a bench, see hip thrusts at home.

The inside of the hip needs its own work. See inner thigh exercises.

For the two main bent-knee hip extension moves and when to use each, see glute bridge vs hip thrust.

Where to go next

Glutes are part of a lower body, not a project on their own. The beginner leg workout at home covers the rest of the leg with no equipment, and the dumbbell leg workout is the loaded version once bodyweight stops being enough.

If you want a full week rather than one session, the beginner home workout plan for women puts lower body work into a structure, and which muscle groups to work out together explains how to build your own.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best upper glute exercises?

Side-lying leg raises, banded lateral walks, standing side leg raises, curtsy lunges and single-leg glute bridges. All of them involve moving the leg out to the side or stabilising the pelvis, which is what the gluteus medius does.

Are the upper glutes a separate muscle?

No. The upper glute area is the gluteus medius and minimus plus the top fibres of the gluteus maximus. Because gluteus medius is a genuinely distinct muscle with its own job, training it deliberately does change that area.

What is the difference between upper and lower glute exercises?

Upper glute work is mostly hip abduction, moving the leg out sideways. Lower glute work is hip extension through a longer range with the hip more bent, such as hip thrusts, Romanian deadlifts and deep step-ups.

How long should I hold a glute bridge?

One to two seconds at the top of each repetition. For a static hold as its own exercise, 20 to 45 seconds, building toward 60. Beyond a minute, switch to a single-leg hold rather than holding for longer.

Can you train glutes without getting on the floor?

Yes. Step-ups, curtsy lunges, standing hip extensions, standing side leg raises and banded lateral walks are all standing exercises and between them cover both the gluteus maximus and the upper glutes.

Does walking make your glutes bigger?

Flat walking does not load the glutes enough to build them. Walking uphill or climbing stairs does meaningfully more, but neither replaces strength training if changing shape is the goal.

How often should I train glutes?

Twice a week with at least two days between sessions. The glutes are a large muscle group and they need recovery to grow, so more frequent training is not better.

Why can I not feel my glutes working?

Usually because the hamstrings or lower back are taking over. On a bridge, move your feet closer to your body and squeeze your buttocks rather than arching your spine. Slow holds at the top help you learn the sensation.

This article is general information for healthy adults, not medical advice. If you have a hip, knee or lower back condition, or you are pregnant or recently postnatal, check with a doctor or physiotherapist before starting. General activity guidance from the NHS, Physical activity guidelines for adults aged 19 to 64.